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ADDISON 



BY 



THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 



WITH NOTES BV 

MARGARET A. EATON, A. B. 



'K4i/ J o« . 



EDUCATIONAL PUBLISHING COMPANY 

BOSTON 
New York Chicago San Francisco 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Received 

JUN. 6 1902 

COPVRIOHT ENTRY 

>fcASi=:5©Ca No. 
COPY B. 



COPTRIGHfED 
By EDUCATIONAL PUBLISHING COMPANY, 

1899. 



■ • ••,*•• • •••••• 



INTRODUCTION. 



Probably no writer who ever lived has succeeded in pro- 
ducing such scholarly, and at the same time such popular and 
intensely interesting work, as Thomas Babington Macaulay. 
Certainly his essays are the most brilliant series in the English 
language. 

Macaulay's father was a Scotchman who had lived for some 
time in the West Indies and who, on his return to England, 
had joined the anti-slavery party. Thomas, his eldest son, was 
born at Rothley Temple, October 25, 1800. He was a remark- 
able child, with a passion for reading and a wonderful memory. 
He did not care for games nor for the companionship of boys of 
his own age, but amused himself by writing hymns, essays, 
poems and histories. At thirteen he wrote: — "The books 
which I am at present employed in reading to myself are, in 
English, Plutarch's " Lives," and Milner's " Ecclesiastical 
History;" in French, Fenelon's " Dialogues of the Dead." I 
shall send you back the volumes of Madam de Genlis's " Petit 
Romans " as soon as possible, and should be very much 
obliged for one or two more of them." 

In 1818 he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, and soon 
distinguished himself in literature and in debate. Mathematics 
he hated and studied only under protest, but he read everything 
from Plato to the latest novel. He could take in the contents 
of a page almost at a glance and finish a whole book while 
another was reading a chapter. What he read he never for- 
got. He could repeat "Paradise Lost" by heart, and two 
newspaper poems which he had once read in a Cambridge 
coffee-house, he was able to reca,ll word for word forty years 
later. 



iv. INTRODUCTION. 

\Vhile at college he won the chancellor's medal for a poem 
on " Pompeii," and, after taking his degree, was elected to z 
fellowship. 

Soon after he began to contribute to the magazines, and in 
1825 his essay on Milton appeared in the Edinburgh Review. 
At that time the reputation of Milton was under a cloud in 
England owing to the influence of Johnson's life. This essay 
of Macaulay's was not so much a critical estimate of the poet 
as an eloquent appeal in his behalf. As such it had a wonder- 
ful success and its author rapidly became famous. 

In 1825 he was admitted to the bar, but his literary work 
increased more rapidly than his law practice. Four years later, 
however, he gave up both to enter Parliament. Here he made 
many brilliant speeches and won renown as a debater. His 
conversational powers, too, were remarkable. Everything that 
he had ever read or heard he could recall on the instant, and 
his fund of information was exhaustless. 

In 1834 he was made president of a Law Commission for 
India and for three years he lived in Calcutta where he obtained 
much of the information which make his essays on Clive and 
Warren Hastings so absorbingly interesting. 

On his return to England he again entered Parliament and 
became War Secretary in 1839. In spite of his many duties 
he still found time to write essays, and in 1842 made a new 
departure by publishing the " Lays of Ancient Rome." 

Two years later, he entered upon his greatest work, the 
"History of England from the Time of James II." His 
avowed purpose was to write a book which should " supersede 
the last fashionable novel on the tables of young ladies." And, 
strange as it may seem, he succeeded. The volumes were 
awaited with the greatest eagerness and the publishers could 
hardly keep pace with the demand. 

Only four volumes of this work were ever finished. 
Macaulay's incessant labors had told upon his strength and he 
died December 38, 1859, three years ^fter receiving the title of 



INTRODUCTION. V. 

Baron. He was buried in Westminster Abbey near Johnson 
and Addison. 

Macaulay's chief characteristic was his intensity. He never 
did anything by halves and it is this trait that often makes his 
writings only partially true. His style well repays careful study, 
for it is always clear and forceful and often full of glow and 
eloquence. There is not a feeble line in all his work. "The 
first rule of all writing," he has said, " that rule to which every 
other is subordinate, is that the words U3ed ])y the writer shall 
be such as most fully and precisely convey his meaning to the 
great body of his readers." 

List of Macaulay's Chief Works. 

ESSAYS. 

Milton, 1825. 

The West Indies, 1825. 

The London University, 1825. 

Machiavelli, 1827. 

Social and Industrial Capacities of Negroes, 1827. 

John Dryden, 182S. 

History, 1828. 

Hallam's Constitutional History, 1828. 

Mill on Government, 1829. 

Utilitarian Theory of Government, 1829. 

Southey's Colloquies on Society, 1830. 

Civil Disabilities of the Jews, 1831. 

Moore's Life of Byron, 1831. 

Boswell's Life of Johnson, 1831. 

Lord Nugent's Memorials of Hampden, 1831. 

Rev. Edward Nare's Memoirs of Mirabeau, 1832. 

Horace Walpole, 1833. 

Earl of Chatham, 1834. 

Sir James Mackintosh, 1835. 

Lord Bacon, 1837. 

Sir William Temple, 1838. 



VI. INTRODUCTION. 

Gladstone on Church and State, 1839. 

Lord Clive, 1840. 

Von Rouke, 1840. 

Leigh Hunt, 1841. 

Lord Holland, 1841. 

Warren Hastings, 1 841. 

Frederick the Great, 1 842. 

Madam D'Arblay, 1843. 

Addison, 1843. 

Barrere, 1844. 

Earl of Chatham, 1844. 

BIOGRAPHIES (ENCYCLOPEDIA BRIITANICA.) 

Frances Atterbury, 1853. 
John Banyan, 1854. 
Oliver Goldsmith, 1856. 
Samuel Johnson, 1856. 
William Pitt, 1859. 

Lays of Ancient Rome, 1842. 

History of England from the Accession of James 11., 1848. 




JOSEPH ADDISON 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS 
OF ADDISON. 

Some reviewers are of opinion that a lady 
who dares to pubHsh a book renounces by that 
act the franchises appertaining to her sex, and 
can claim no exemption from the utmost rigor 
of critical procedure. From that opinion we 5 
dissent. We admit, indeed, that, in a country 
which boasts of many female writers eminently 
qualified by their talents and acquirements to 
influence the public mind, it would be of most 
pernicious consequence that inaccurate history 10 
or unsound philosophy should be suffered to 
pass uncensured, merely because the offender 
chanced to be a lady. But we conceive that, 
on such occasions, a critic would do well to 
imitate the courteous knight who found him- 1.:, 
self compelled by duty to keep the lists against 
Bradamante. He, we are told, defended suc- 
cessfully the cause of which he was the 
champion, but, before the fight began, ex- 

17. Bradamante. A lady knight-errant in Ariosto's " Orlando Furioso," 
XLV. The courteous knight was Ruggiero. 

7 



8 ADDISON. 

changed Balisarda for a less deadly sword, 
of which he carefully blunted the point and 
edge. 

Nor are the immunities of sex the only 
5 immunities which Miss Aikin may rightfully 
plead. Several of her works, and especially 
the very pleasing " Memoirs of the Court of 
King James I.," have fully entitled her to the 
privileges enjoyed by good writers. One of 

10 those privileges we hold to be this: that such 
writers, when, either from the imlucky choice 
of a subject or from the indolence too often 
produced by success, they happen to fail, shall 
not be subjected to the severe discipline which 

15 it is sometimes necessary to inflict upon dunces 
and imposters, but shall merely be reminded 
by a gentle touch, like that with which the 
Laputan flapper roused his dreaming lord, 
that it is high time to wake. 

20 Our readers will probably infer from what 
we have said that Miss Aikin's book has 
disappointed us. The truth is, that she is not 

I. Balisarda. Ruggiero's enchanted sword which could cut through 
any substance. 

5. Miss Lucy Aikin, (1781-1864.) A well-known critic and compiler. 
It is her " Life of Joseph Addison" that Macaulay is reviewing in this 
essay. 

18. Laputan flapper. In Dean Swift's story of " Gulliver's Travels," 
the hero visits the country of Lapiita where the inhabitants are so absent- 
minded that they have to be attended by a servant whose business it is to 
flap them with a bladder to keep their attention aroused. 



ADDISON. 9 

well acquainted with her subject. No person 
who is not familiar with the political and 
literary history of England during the reigns 
of William III., of Anne, and of George I., can 
possibly write a good life of Addison. Now, s 
we mean no reproach to Miss Aikin, and many 
will think that we pay her a compliment, when 
we say that her studies have taken a different 
direction. . She is better acquainted with Shake- 
speare and Raleigh than with Congreve andio 
Prior, and is far more at home among the ruffs 
and peaked beards of Theobald's than among 
the Steenkirks and flowing periwigs which 
surrounded Queen Anne's tea table at Hamp- 
ton. She seems to have written about the 15 
Elizabethan age, because she had read much 
about it; she seems, on the other hand, to 
have read a little about the age of Addison, 
because she had determined to write about it. 
The consequence is, that she has had to 20 

10. Sir Walter Raleigh, (1552-1618.'^ Noted as a statesman, explorer 
and author as well as for his chivalry to Queen Elizabeth. 

10. Congreve and Prior. Both poets of the time of Addison. 

12. Theobald's. The country seat of Cecil, Lord of Burleigh, the 
famous minister of Queen Elizabeth. It was afterwards one of the 
residences of James I. and the place of his death. 

13. Steenkirks. At the battle of Steenkirks in Holland, when William 
III. was defeated, the fine gentlemen of the court rode into the fight with 
their cravats all disordered. After this it became the fashion to wear 
loosely arranged cravats of lace called " Steenkirks." 

14. Hampton Court. A palace on the Thames, built by Cardinal 
Woisey and afterwards the favorite residence of many of the English 
sovereigns. 



10 ADDISON. 

describe men and things without having either 
a correct or a vivid idea of them, and that she 
has often fallen into errors of a very serious 
kind. The reputation which Miss Aikin has 

5 justly earned stands so high, and the charm of 
Addison's letters is so great, that a second 
edition of this work may probably be required. 
If so, we hope that every paragraph will be 
revised, and that every date and fact about 

10 which there can be the smallest doubt will be 
carefully verified. 

To Addison himself we are bound by a 
sentiment as much like affection as any senti- 
ment can be which is inspired by one who has 

15 been sleeping a hundred and twenty years in 
Westminster Abbey. We trust, however, that 
this feeling will not betray us into that abject 
idolatry which we have often had occasion to 
reprehend in others, and which seldom fails 

20 to make both the idolator and the idol ridicu- 
lous. A man of genius and virtue is but a 
man. All his powers cannot be equally devel- 
oped, nor can we expect from him perfect 
self-knowledge. We need not, therefore, hesi- 

23tate to admit that Addison has left us some 
compositions which do not rise above medi- 
ocrity, some heroic poems hardly equal to 



ADDISON. 1 1 

Parnell's, some criticisms as superficial as Dr. 
Blair's, and a tragedy not very much better 
than Dr. Johnson's. It is praise enough to 
say of a writer, that, in a high department of 
literature in which many eminent writers haves 
distinguished themselves, he has had no equal ; 
and this may with strict justice be said of 
Addison. 

As a man he may not have deserved the 
adoration which he received from those, who, lo 
bewitched by his fascinating society, and in- 
debted for all the comforts of life to his 
generous and delicate friendship, worshipped 
him nightly in his favorite temple at Button's. 
But, after full inquiry and impartial reflec- 1^ 
tion, we have long been convinced that he 
deserved as much love and esteem as can be 
justly claimed by any of our infirm and erring 
race. Some blemishes may undoubtedly be 
detected in his character; but the more care- 20 
fully it is examined, the more will it appear, 

1. Thomas Parnell, 1679-1717.) An Irish poet of Queen Anne's 
reign. His best known poem is the " Hermit." 

2. Dr. Blair, (1718-1800.) A Scotch preacher and professor of rhet- 
oric at Edinburgh University. 

3. Dr. Samuel Johnson, (1709-1784.) The foremost man of letters of 
his time. The play referred to is his " Irene," which is here compared 
with Addison's " Cato." 

14. Button's. A celebrated London coffee-house in Queen Anne's 
reign. These coffee-houses were virtually clubs where the wits and 
scholars used to assemble for social intercourse. 



12 ADDISON. 

to use the phrase of the old anatomists, sound 
in the noble parts, free from all taint of perfidy, 
of cowardice, of cruelty, of ingratitude, of envy. 
Men may easily be named in whom some 

5 particularly good disposition has been more 
conspicuous than in Addison. But the just 
harmony of qualities, the exact temper between 
the stern and the humane virtues, the habitual 
observance of every law, not only of moral 

10 rectitude, but of moral grace and dignity, 
distinguish him from all men who have been 
tried by equally strong temptations, and about 
whose conduct we possess equally full infor- 
mation. 

15 His father was the Rev. Lancelot Addison, 
who, though eclipsed by his more celebrated 
son, made some figure in the world, and 
occupies with credit two folio pages in the 
*' Biographia_Britaiiiiica.'' Lancelot was sent 

20 up, as a poor scholar, from Westmoreland to 
Queen's College, Oxford, in the time of the 
Commonwealth, made some progress in learn- 
ing, became, like most of his fellow students, 

19. Biographia Brittanica. A series of short biographical sketches 
published in London, 1747-1766. 

21. Queen's College. So named in 1340 for Philippa, Que?n of 
Edward III. 

22. Commonwealth The period from 1649 to the Restoration in 1660, 
established by Cromwell. 



ADDISON. 13 

a violent Royalist, lampooned the heads of 
the university, and was forced to ask pardon 
on his bended knees. When he had left 
college, he earned a humble subsistence by 
reading the liturgy of the fallen church 5 
to the families of those sturdy squires 
whose manor houses were scattered over 
the Wilds of Sussex. After the restora- 
tion, his loyalty was rewarded with the post of 
chaplain to the garrison of Dunkirk. When 10 
Dunkirk was sold to France, he lost his 
employment. But Tangier had been ceded 
by Portugal to England as a part of the 
marriage portion of the Infanta Catherine ; 
and to Tangier, Lancelot Addison was sent. 15 
A more miserable situation can hardly be con- 
ceived. It was difficult to say whether the 
unfortunate settlers were more tormented by 
the heats, or by the rains ; by the soldiers 
within the wall, or by the Moors without it. 20 
One advantage the chaplain had. He enjoyed 

5 Fallen church. The Episcopal, whose worship was forbidden under 
Cromwell and replaced by the i^resbyterian. 

8. "Wilds of Sussex This region was originally a forest and wild is 
the A. S. weald, meaning forest. 

10. Dunkirk. A fortified seaport in France on the Straits of Dover. 
It was captured by Cromwell in 1658, but afterward sold to France by 
Charles II. 

12. Tangier. A port of Morocco on the Straits of Gibraltar. 

14. Infanta. A name given to the Spanish princesses of the royal blood 
with the exception of the eldest. 



14 ADDISON. 

an excellent opportunity of studying the his- 
tory and manners of Jews and Mohammedans; 
and of this opportunity he appears to have made 
excellent use. On his return to England, after 

5 some years of banishment, he published an 
interesting volume on the " Polity and Religion 
of Barbary," and another on the " Hebrew 
Customs and the State of Rabbinical Learning." 
He rose to eminence in his profession, and 

10 became one of the royal chaplains, a doctor of 
divinity, Archdeacon of Salisbury, and Dean 
of Lichfield. It is said that he would have 
been made a bishop after the Revolution, if 
he had not given offence to the government 

15 by strenuously opposing, in the Convention 
of 1689, the liberal policy of William and 
Tillotson. 

In 1672, not long after Dr. Addison's return 
from Tangier, his son Joseph was born. Of 

•20 Joseph's childhood we know little. He learned 
his rudiments at schools in his father's neigh- 
borhood, and was then sent to the Charter 
House. The anecdotes which are popularly re- 
lated about his boyish tricks do not harmonize 

17. Tillotson. ''1630-1694.) A noted prelate cf the English church who 
was made Archbishop of Canterbury by William III. 

22. Charter House. A famous London school for boys founded for 
the benefit of " the sons of poor gentlemen." Thackeray describes the 
place in the " Newcomes." 



ADDISON. 15 

very well with what we know of his riper years. 
There remains a tradition that he was the ring- 
leader in a barring-out, and another tradition 
that he ran away from school, and hid himself 
in a wood, where he fed on berries, and slept 5 
in a hollow tree, till, after a long search, he 
was discovered and brought home. If these 
stories be true, it would be curious to know by 
what moral discipline so mutinous and enter- 
prising a lad was transformed into the gentlest 10 
and most modest of men. 

We have abundant proof, that, whatever 
Joseph's pranks may have been, he pursued 
his studies vigorously and successfully. At 
fifteen he was not only fit for the university, but 15 
carried thither a classical taste and a stock of 
learning which would have done honor to a 
master of arts. He was entered at Queen's 
College, Oxford ; but he had not been many 
months there when some of his Latin vevses2o 
fell by accident into the hands of Dr. Lan- 
caster, Dean of Magdalen College. The young 
scholar's diction and versification were already 
such as veteran professors might envy. Dr. 
Lancaster was desirous to serve a boy of such 25 
promise; nor was an opportunity long wanting. 

3. Barring-out. An old custom of shutting the master out of the 
school-room until he had conie to terms. 



lb ■ ADDISON. 

The Revolution had just taken place, and no- 
where had it been hailed with more delight 
than at Magdalen College. That great and 
opulent corporation had been treated by James, 
sand by his chancellor, with an insolence and 
injustice, which, even in such a prince and in 
such a minister, may justly excite amazement, 
and which had done more than even the 
prosecution of the bishops to alienate the 

10 Church of England from the throne. A 
president, duly elected, had been violently 
expelled from his dwelling; a Papist had been 
set over the society by a royal mandate ; the 
fellows who, in conformity with their oaths, 

15 had refused to submit to this usurper, had 
been driven forth from their quiet cloisters and 
gardens, to die of want, or to live on charity. 
But the day of redress and retribution speedily 
came. The intruders were ejected ; the vener- 

20 able house was again inhabited by its old 
inmates; learning flourished under the rule of 
the wise and virtuous Hough ; and with learn- 

I. Revolution. That of i688 which made William of Orange King of 
England. 

5. Chancellor. Jeffreys, a judge noted for his cruelty and persecu- 
tions. 

9 Prosecution. Six bishops had been prosecuted in 1687 by James 
II. for refusing to read before their congregations a Declaration of Indul- 
gence to Catholics. 

II. President. Dr. John Hough, (1651-1743.) He was president of 
Magdalen during Addison's residence there. 



ADDISON. 17 

ing was united a mild and liberal spirit too 
often wanting in the princely colleges of 
Oxford. In consequence of the troubles 
through which the society had passed, there 
had been no valid election of new members 5 
during the year 1688. In 1689, therefore, 
there were twice the ordinary number of 
vacancies ; and thus Dr. Lancaster found it 
easy to procure for his young friend adn>it- 
tance to the advantages of a foundation then 10 
generally esteemed the wealthiest in Europe. 
At Magdalen, Addison resided during ten 
years. He was at first one of those scholars 
who are called ** Demies," but was subse- 
quently elected a fellow. His college is still 15 
proud of his name ; his portrait still hangs in 
the hall ; and strangers are still told that his 
favorite walk was under the elms which fringe 
the meadow on the banks of the Cherwell. It 
is said, and is highly probable, that he was 20 
distinguished among his fellow students by the 
delicacy of his feelings, by the shyness of his 
manners, and by the assiduity with which he 
prolonged his studies far into the night. It is 
certain that his reputation for ability and 25 

14. Demies. The corporation of the college consisted of a president 
and thirty scholars called " demies." The fellows form the governing 
body of their college but are not necessarily resident. 



1 8 ADDISON. 

learning stood high. Many years later the 
ancient doctors of Magdalen continued to talk 
in their common room of his boyish composi- 
tions, and expressed their sorrow that no copy 

5 of exercises so remarkable had been preserved. 
It is proper, however, to remark that Miss 
Aikin has committed the error, very pardon- 
able in a lady, of overrating Addison's classical 
attainments. In one department of learning, 

10 indeed, his proficiency was such as it is hardly 
possible to overrate. His knowledge of the 
Latin poets, from Lucretius and Catullus, down 
to Claudian and Prudentius, was singularly 
exact and profound. He understood them 

15 thoroughly, entered into their spirit, and had 
the finest and most discriminating perception 
of all their peculiarities of style and melody ; 
nay, he copied their manner with admirable 
skill, and surpassed, we think, all their British 

20 imitators who had preceded him, Buchanan 
and Milton alone excepted. This is high 
praise ; and beyond this we cannot with justice 

12. Lucretius, (95-55 B.C.* A great Roman poet. His De Reruin 
Natura is perhaps the greatest didactic poem ever written. 

12. Catullus, 86-46 B.C.) A celebrated lyric poet. 

13. Claudian. A writer of epics and the last of the classical poets. 

13. Prudentius. A Christian poet of Spanish origin. 

20. Buchanan, (i5o6-i582.> A famous scholar, tutor of Mary Queen 
of Scots, and the young James VI. He is noted for his polished Latin 
style. 



ADDISON. 19 

go. It is clear that Addison's serious atten- 
tion during his residence at the university was 
almost entirely concentrated on Latin poetry, 
and that, if he did not wholly neglect other 
provinces of ancient literature, he vouchsafed 5 
them only a cursory glance. He does not 
appear to have obtained more than an ordinary 
acquaintance with the political and moral 
writers of Rome ; nor was his own Latin prose 
by any means equal to his Latin verse. His 10 
knowledge of Greek, though doubtless such as 
was, in his time, thought respectable at 
Oxford, was evidently less than that which 
many lads now carry away every year from 
Eton and Rugby. A minute examination of is 
his works, if we had time to make such an 
examination, would fully bear out these re- 
marks. We will briefly advert to a few of the 
facts on which our judgment is grounded. 

Great praise is due to the notes which Addi- 20 
son appended to his version of the second and 
third books of the "Metamorphoses." Yet 
those notes, while they show him to have 
been, in his own domain, an accomplished 
scholar, show also how confined that domain 25 

15 Eton and Rugby. The two great English schools for boys. 
22. M tamorphoses. Mythological poems by the Latin poet Ovid. 



20 ADDISON. 

was. They are rich in apposite references to 
Virgil, Statins, and Claudian ; but they contain 
not a single illustration drawn from the Greek 
poets. Now if, in the whole compass of Latin 
5 literature, there be a passage which stands in 
need of illustration drawn from the Greek 
poets, it is the story of Pentheus in the third 
book of the " Metamorphoses." Ovid was 
indebted for that story to Euripides and 

10 Theocritus, both of whom he had sometimes 
followed minutely. But neither to Euripides 
nor to Theocritus does Addison make the 
faintest allusion ; and we therefore believe that 
we do not wrong him by supposing that he 

15 had little or no knowledge of their works. 

His travels in Italy, again, abound with 
classical quotations happily introduced ; but 
scarcely one of those quotations is in prose. 
He draws more illustrations from Ausonius 

20 and Manilius than from Cicero. Even his 
notions of the political and military affairs of 
the Romans seem to be derived from poets and 
poetasters. Spots made memorable by events 

2. Statius, (45-96.) A Latin poet, author of the " Thebais." 

9. Euripides, (481 B C.) The last of the three great Greek writers 
of tragedy. The other two were Sophocles and iEschylus. 

10. Theocritus. A Sicilian poet of the third century B. C. His idyls 
are the greatest in Greek Hterature. 

20. Ausonius and Manilius. Both minor poets of the Augustan tra. 



ADDISOX. 21 

which have changed the destinies of the world, 
and which have been worthily recorded by 
great historians, bring to his mind only scraps 
of some ancient versifier. In the gorge of the 
Apennines he naturally remembers the hard- 5 
ships which Hannibal's army endured, and 
proceeds to cite, not the authentic narrative of 
Polybius, not the picturesque narrative of Livy, 
but the languid hexameters of Silius Italicus. 
On the banks of the Rubicon he never thinks 10 
of Plutarch's lively description, or of the stern 
conciseness of the Commentaries, or of those 
Letters to Atticus which so forcibly express 
the alterations of hope and fear in a sensitive 
mind at a great crisis. His only authority for 15 
the events of the civil war is Lucan. 

All the best ancient works of art at Rome 

6. Hannibal, '247-183 B. C.) A Carthaginian who invaded Italy and 
defeated the Romans in many battles. He was finally defeated by Scipio. 

8. Polybius, (204 B. C.) He wrote a general history of Greece and 
Rome only five books of which are now extant. 

8. Livy, (59 B.C.-18 A.D.) One of the greatest Roman historians. 
He wrote the " Annals of Rome " from its foundation to the year 9 B.C. 

9. Silius Italicus. A poet of little note who wrote an epic on the 
second war with Hannibal. 

10. Rubicon. The river forming the boundary line between Gaul and 
Italy. The crossing of this river by one nation or the other was virtually 
a declaration of war. 

11. Plutarch, (66-120.) A great Greek biographer. 

12. Commentaries. Caesar's history of the Gallic War. 

13. Atticus. These letters were addressed to him by Cicero. 

16. Lucan, (37 A.D.) Author of a poem describing the civil war 
between Csesar and Pompey. 



22 ADDISON. 

and Florence are Greek. Addison saw them, 
however, without recalHng one single verse of 
Pindar, of Callimachus, or of the Attic drama- 
tists ; but they brought to his recollection 

5 innumerable passages of Horace, Juvenal, 
Statius, and Ovid. 

The same may be said of the treatise on 
medals. In that pleasing work we find about 
three hundred passages extracted with great 

10 judgment from the Roman poets; but we do 
not recollect a single passage taken from any 
Roman orator or historian, and we are con- 
fident that not a line is quoted from any Greek 
writer. No person who had derived all his 

i"- information on the subject of medals from 

Addison would suspect that the Greek coins 

were in historical interest equal, and in beauty 

of execution far superior, to those of Rome. 

If it were necessary to find any further 

20 proof that Addison's classical knowledge was 
confined within narrow limits, that proof would 
be furnished by his " Essay on the Evidences 
of Christianity." The Roman poets throw 

3. Pindar, (522 B.C.) The greatest Greek lyric poet. 

3. Callimachus. A Greek epigrammatic poet. 

5. Horace. A great Augustan poet. His odes and ratires are the 
most perfect in the Latin tongue. 

5. Juvenal, ''56-140.) A celebrated satirist who inveighed bitterly 
against the crimes and follies of Roman society. 



ADDISON. 23 

little or no light on the literary and historical 
questions which he is under the necessity of 
examining in that essay. He is, therefore, left 
completely in the dark ; and it is melancholy 
to see how helplessly he gropes his way from 5 
blunder to blunder. He assigns as grounds 
for his religious belief stories as absurd as that 
of the Cock Lane ghost, and forgeries as rank 
as Ireland's Vortigern ; puts faith in ihe lie 
about the Thundering Legion ; is convinced 10 
that Tiberius moved the senate to admit Jesus 
among the gods ; and pronounces the letter of 
Agbarus, King of Edessa, to be a record of 
great authority. Nor were these errors the 
effects of superstition, for to superstition Addi-15 
son was by no means prone. The truth is, 
that he was writing about what he did not 
understand. 

Miss Aikin has discovered a letter, from 
which it appears, that, while Addison resided 20 

8 Cock Lane ghost. A ghost supposed to haunt the bed of a young 
girl who lived in Cock Lane in 1762. It was found to be an imposture. 

9. Vortigern. Ireland forged a lease for Stratford-on-Avon containing 
the pretended signature of Shakespeare, and pretended to have found an 
unpublished tragedy called " Vortigern and Rowena." 

10. Thundering Legion. There is a story that a legion of Christians 
in the army of Marcus Aurelius, having prayed for rain, were answered by 
a thunder storm. Hence their name. 

11. Tiberius, (42 B.C. 37 A.D.) The second Roman emperor. 

13. Agbarus. Legend says that this king, falling ill and hearing of the 
wonderful cures of Jesus, wrote a letter to him, and received a reply 
promising that one of the disciples should be sent to him. 



24 ADDISON. 

at Oxford, he was one of several writers whom 
the booksellers engaged to make an English 
version of Herodotus ; and she infers that he 
must have been a good Greek scholar. We 

5 can allow very little weight to this argument, 
when we consider that his fellow-laborers were 
to have been Boyle and Blackmore. Boyle is 
remembered chiefly as the nominal author of 
the worst book on Greek history and philology 

10 that ever was printed; and this book, bad as 
it is, Boyle was unable to produce without 
help. Of Blackmore's attainments in the 
ancient tongues, it may be sufficient to say, 
that in his prose he has confounded an 

15 aphorism with an apothegm, and that when, in 
his verse, he treats of classical subjects, his 
habit is to regale his readers with four false 
quantities to a page. 

It is probable that the classical acquirements 

20 of Addison were of as much service to him as 
if they had been more extensive. The world 
generally gives its admiration, not to the man 
who does what nobody else even attempts to 
do, but to the man who does best what multi- 



3. Herodotus, (434 B.C.) The earliest Greek historian, often called 
the ' Father of History." 

7. Boyle and Blackmore. Both rather dull and prosaic writers of the 
period. The latter was court physician. 



ADDISON. 25 

tudes do well. Bentley was so immeasurably 
superior to all other scholars of his time, that 
few among them could discover his superiority. 
But the accomplishment in which Addison 
excelled his contemporaries was then, as it is^ 
now, highly valued and assiduously cultivated 
at all English seats of learning. Everybody 
who had been at a public school had written 
Latin verses : many had written such verses 
with tolerable success, and were quite able to 10 
appreciate, though by no means able to rival, 
the skill with which Addison imitated Virgil. 
His lines on the *' Barometer" and the " Bowl- 
ing Green " were applauded by hundreds to 
whom the "Dissertation on the Epistles of is 
Phalaris " was as unintelligible as the hierogly- 
phics on an obelisk. 

Purity of style, and an easy flow of numbers, 
are common to all Addison's Latin poems. 
Our favorite piece is the '' Battle of the Cranes 20 
and Pygmies," for in that piece we discern a 
gleam of the fancy and humor which many 
years later enlivened thousands of breakfast 
tables. Swift boasted that he was never known 

I. Richard Bentley, (1662-1742.) The foremost divine and classical 
scholar of his time. He exposed the spurious character of the " Epistles 
of Phalaris," edited by Boyle. 

24. Jonathan Swift, (1666-1745.^ A distinguished master of English 
prose. His best known work is " Gulliver's Travels." 



26 ADDISON. 

to steal a hint; and he certainly owed as little 
to his predecessors as any modern writer. 
Yet we cannot help suspecting that he bor- 
rowed, perhaps unconsciously, one of the 

5 happiest touches in his " Voyage to Lilliput " 

from Addison's verses. Let our readers judge. 

" The Emperor," says Gulliver, " is taller by 

about the breadth of my nail than any of his 

court, which alone is enough to strike an awe 

10 into the beholders." 

About thirty years before " Gulliver's 
Travels" appeared, Addison wrote these 
lines : — 

" Jamque acies inter medias sese arduus infert 
16 Pygmeadum ductor, qui, maj estate verendus, 

Incessuque gravis, reliquos supereminet omnes 
Mole gigantea, mediainque exsurgit in ulnam." 

The Latin poems of Addison were greatly 
and justly admired both at Oxford and Cam- 
20 bridge, before his name had ever been heard 
by the wits who thronged the coffee-houses 
round Drury Lane Theatre. In his twenty- 
second year he ventured to appear before the 
public as a writer of English verse. He 

5. Lilliput. The land cf the pygmies where Gulliver first sojourns 
17. " And now into the midst of the line of battle the bold leader of the 

Pygmies makes his way, who, awful in his majesty and commanding in 

his mein, all the rest o'ertops with his gigantic form, and rises to the 

middle of the arm." 

22. Drury Lane. The leading theatre of the time. This region was 

really the hterary center of the town. 



ADDISON. 27 

addressed some complimentary lines to Dry- 
den, who, after many triumphs and many 
reverses, had at length reached a secure and 
lonely eminence among the literary men of 
that age. Dryden appears to have been much 5 
gratified by the young scholar's praise ; and 
an interchange of civilities and good offices 
followed. Addison was probably introduced 
by Dryden to Congreve, and was certainly 
presented by Congreve to Charles Montague, 10 
who was then chancellor of the exchequer, and 
leader of the Whig party in the House of 
Commons. 

At this time, Addison seemed inclined to 
devote himself to poetry. He published a 15 
translation of part of the fourth '* Georgic," 
" Lines to King William," and other perform- 
ances of equal value ; that is to say, of no value 
at all. But in those days the public was in the 
habit of receiving with applause pieces which 20 
would now have little chance of obtaining the 
Newdigate prize or the Seatonian prize. And 

5. John Dryden. The most famous poet ot the period. He was made 
laureate in 1668. 

9. Congreve, '1670-1729.) A dramatic poet greatly admired for his 
fine workmanship. 

ID. Charles Montague, ''1661-1715 ) Earl of Halifax, a close friend of 
Addison's and Chancellor of the Exchequer under William HI. 

16. Georgics. Pastoral Poems of Vergil. 

22. Prize. These were scholarships given for the best English poems, 
the first at Oxford, the second at Cambridge. 



28 ADDISON. 

the reason is obvious. The heroic couplet 
was then the favorite measure. The art of 
arranging words in that measure, so that the 
Hnes may flow smoothly, that the accents may 

5 fall correctly, that the rhymes may strike the 
ear strongly, and that there may be a pause at 
the end of every distich, is an art as mechanical 
as that of mending a kettle, or shoeing a horse, 
and may be learned by any human being who 

10 has sense enough to learn anything. But, like 
other mechanical arts, it was gradually im- 
proved by means of many experiments and 
many failures. It was reserved for Pope to 
discover the trick, to make himself complete 

15 master of it, and to teach it to everybody else. 
From the time when his " Pastorals " appeared, 
heroic versification became matter of rule and 
compass ; and before long all artists were on a 
level. Hundreds of dunces who never blun- 

2odered on one happy thought or expression 
were able to write reams of couplets, which, 
as far as euphony was concerned, could not be 
distinguished from those of Pope himself, and 
which very clever writers of the reign of 

I. Heroic couplet. Iambic pentameter verse. Lowell calls it 'the 
rocking-horse measure." 

13. Alexander Pope, (1688-1744.) Pope brought this kind of couplet 
to its greatest perfection. It lends itself most readily to his clever, caustic 
mind and keen wit. 



ADDISON. 29 

Charles II. — Rochester, for example, or Mar- 
veil, or Oldham — would have contemplated 
with admiring despair. 

Ben Jonson was a great man, Hoole a very 
small man. But Hoole, coming after Pope, 5 
had learned how to manufacture decasyllable 
verses, and poured them forth by thousands 
and tens of thousands, all as well turned, as 
smooth, and as like each other as the blocks 
which have passed through Mr. Brunei's mill 10 
in the dockyard at Portsmouth. Ben's heroic 
couplets resemble blocks rudely hewn out by 
an unpracticed hand with a blunt hatchet. 
Take as a specimen his translation of a 
celebrated passage in the " ^neid" : — 15 

" This child our parent earth, stirr'd up with spite 
Of all the gods, brought forth, and, as some write, 
She was last sister of that giant race 
That sought to scale Jove's court, right swift of pace, 
And swifter far of wing, a monster vast 20 

And dreadful. Look, how many plumes are placed 
On her huge corpse, so many waking eyes 
Stick underneath, and, which may stranger rise 
In the report, as many tongues she wears." 

I. Rochester, (1647-1680.) A favorite of Charles III., a man of wit 
and talent but licentious and vicious. 

1. Marvell. A friend of Milton's and a poet of no small ability. 

2. Oldham, (1653-1683.) He wrote satires in imitation of Juvenal. 

4. Ben Jonson, (1574-1637.) Probably the greatest English dramatist 
after Shakespeare. He was poet laureate in 1619 

5. Hoole, (1727-1803.) Wrote translations and inferior dramas. 

10. Brunei. A noted engineer in his day. He constructed the first 
tunnel under the Thames. 

24. These lines are a translation of the " JEne'id," Book IV., lines 178- 
183, and occur in Jonson's " Poetaster," V., i. 



30 ADDISON. 

Compare with these jagged, misshapen dis- 
tichs the neat fabric which Hoole's machine 
produces in unHmited abundance. We take 
the first Hnes on which we open in his version 
5 of Tasso. They are neither better nor worse 
than the rest: — 

" O thou, whoe'er thou art, whose steps are led, 
By choice or fate, these lonely shores to tread, 
No greater wonders east or west can boast 
10 Than yon small island on the pleasing coast. 

If e'er thy sight would blissful scenes explore, 
The current pass, and seek the further shore." 

Ever since the time of Pope there has been 
a ghit of hnes of this sort ; and we are now as 

ishttle disposed to admire a man for being able 
to write them as for being able to write his 
name. But in the days of William III. such 
versification was rare ; and a rhymer who had 
any skill in it passed for a great poet, just as, 

20 in the dark ages, a person who could write his 
own name passed for a great clerk. Accord- 
ingly, Duke, Stepney, Granville, Walsh, and 
others whose only title to fame was that 
they said in tolerable meter what might have 

•25 been as well said in prose, or what was not 
worth saying at all, were honored with marks 

5. Torquato Tasso, ''1544-1595 ) An Italian epic poet. His chief 
work is "Jerusalem Delivered." 

22. All minor English poets of Addison's day. 



ADDISON. 3 1 

of distinction which ought to be reserved for 
genius. With these Addison must have 
ranked, if he had not earned true and last- 
ing glory by performances which very little 
resembled his juvenile poems. 6 

Dryden was now busied with Virgil, and 
obtained from Addison a critical preface to the 
" Georgics." In return for this service, and 
for other services of the same kind, the veteran 
poet, in the postscript to the translation of the lo 
" ^neid," complimented his young friend with 
great liberality, and indeed with more liberality 
than sincerity. He affected to be afraid that his 
own performance would not sustain a compari- 
son with the version of the fourth " Georgic,"i5 
by ** the most ingenious Mr. Addison of 
Oxford." " After his bees," added Dryden, 
*' my latter swarm is scarcely worth the 
hiving." 

The time had now arrived when it was 20 
necessary for Addison to choose a calling. 
Everything seemed to point his course towards 
the clerical profession. His habits were regu- 
lar, his opinions orthodox. His college had 
large ecclesiastical preferment in its gift, and 25 
boasts that it has given at least one bishop 

17. After his bees. The fourth Georgic has for its subject the keeping 
of bees. 



32 ADDISON. 

to almost every see in England. Dr. Lancelot 
Addison held an honorable place in the 
Church, and had set his heart on seeing his 
son a clergyman. It is clear, from some 

6 expressions in the young man's rhymes, that 
his intention was to take orders. But Charles 
Montague interfered. Montague had first 
brought himself into notice by verses, well 
timed and not contemptibly written, but never, 

10 we think, rising above mediocrity. Fortu- 
nately for himself and for his country, he early 
quitted poetry, in which he could never have 
attained a rank as high as that of Dorset or 
Rochester, and turned his mind to official and 

15 parliamentary business. It is written that the 
ingenius person who undertook to instruct 
Rasselas, prince of Abyssinia, in the art of 
flying, ascended an eminence, waved his wings, 
sprang into the air, and instantly dropped into 

20 the lake. But it is added that the wings 
which were unable to support him through the 
sky, bore him up effectually as soon as he 
was in the water. This is no bad type of the 
fate of Charles Montague, and of men like 

25 him. When he attempted to soar into the 

13. Earl of Dorset, (1637-1706.) A courtier of Charles II. and a gen- 
erous patron of letters. 

17. Rasselas. The hero of the tale of that name by Dr. Johnson. He 
is said to have written it in a week's time to pay for his mother's funeral. 



ADDISON. 33 

regions of poetical invention, he altogether 
failed ; but as soon as he had descended from 
that ethereal elevation into a lower and grosser 
element, his talents instantly raised him above 
the mass. He became a distinguished finan- s 
cier, debater, courtier, and party leader. He 
still retained his fondness for the pursuits of 
his early days ; but he showed that fondness, 
not by wearying the public with his own feeble 
performances, but by discovering and encour-io 
aging literary excellence in others. A crowd 
of wits and poets, who would easily have van- 
quished him as a competitor, revered him as 
a judge and a patron. In his plans for the 
encouragement of learning, he was cordially 15 
supported by the ablest and most virtuous of 
his colleagues, the Lord Chancellor Somers. 
Though both these great statesmen had a 
sincere love of letters, it was not solely from a 
love of letters that they were desirous to enlist 20 
youths of high intellectual qualifications in the 
public service. The Revolution had altered 
the whole system of government. Before that 
event, the press had been controlled by cen- 
sors, and the Parliament had sat only two 25 
months in eight years. Now the press was 

17. Lord Somers, (1652-1716."! A man of great leaining and leader of 
the Whig party. He was lord chancellor under William III. 



34 ADDISON. 

free, and had begun to exercise unprecedented 
influence on the pubHc mind. Parhament 
met annually, and sat long. The chief power 
in the State had passed to the House of 
^Commons. At such a conjuncture it was 
natural t4iat literary and oratorical talents 
should rise in value. There was danger that 
a government which neglected such talents 
might be subverted by them. It was, there- 
tofore, a profound and enlightened policy which 
led Montague and Somers to attach such talents 
to the Whig party by the strongest ties both of 
interest and of gratitude. 

It is remarkable that in a neighboring coun- 

^^ try we have recently seen similar effects follow 

from similar causes. The Revolution of July, 

1830, established representative , government 

in France. The men of letters instantly rose to 

the highest importance in the State. At the 

20 present moment, most of the persons whom 

we see at the head both of the Administration 

and of the Opposition have been professors, 

historians, journalists, poets. The influence 

of the literary class in England during the 

2n generation which followed the Revolution was 

great, but by no means so great as it has lately 

been in France ; for in England the aristocracy 



ADDISON. 35 

of intellect had to contend with a powerful and 
deeply rooted aristocracy of a very different 
kind. France had no Somersets and Shrews- 
buries to keep down her Addisons and Priors. 

It was in the year 1699, when Addison had 5 
just completed his twenty-seventh year, that 
the course of his life was finally determined. 
Both the great chiefs of the ministry were 
kindly disposed towards him. In political 
opinions he already was, what he continued to 10 
be through life, a firm though a moderate 
Whig. He had addressed the most polished 
and vigorous of his early English lines to 
Somers, and had dedicated to Montague a 
Latin poem, truly Virgilian both in style and 15 
rhythm, on the peace of Ryswick. The wish 
of the young poet's great friends was, it should 
seem, to employ him in the service of the 
Crown abroad. But an intimate knowledge of 
the French* language was a qualification indis-20 
pensable to a diplomatist ; and this qualification 
Addison had not acquired. It was therefore 
thought desirable that he should pass some 
time on the Continent in preparing himself for 

3. Duke of Somerset, 1661-1748.) A leading Whig statesman. 

4. Shrewsbury. A lawyer of note, afterward chancellor. 

16. Peace of Ryswick, (1697.) A temporary peace between England 
and Holland on the one side, and Louis XIV. of France on the other. 
The latter was seeking to gain the crown of Spain for his house. 



36 ADDISON. 

official employment. His own means were 
not such as would enable him to travel; but a 
pension of three hundred pounds a year was 
procured for him by the interest of the lord 

5 chancellor. It seems to have been appre- 
hended that some difficulty might be started 
by the rulers of Magdalen College ; but the 
chancellor of the exchequer wrote in the 
strongest terms to Hough. The State — such 

10 was the purport of Montague's letter — could 
not at that time spare to the Church such a 
man as Addison. Too many high civil posts 
were already occupied by adventurers, who, 
destitute of every liberal art and sentiment, at 

15 once pillaged and disgraced the country which 
they pretended to serve. It had become 
necessary to recruit for the public service from 
a very different class, — from that class of 
which Addison was a representative. The 

'20 close of the minister's letter was remarkable. 

*' I am called," he said, " an enemy of the 

Church ; but I will never do it any other 

injury than keeping Mr. Addison out of it." 

This interference was successful; and in the 

26 summer of 1699 Addison, made a rich man by 
his pension, and still retaining his fellowship, 
quitted his beloved Oxford, and set out on his 



ADDISON. 37 

travels. He crossed from Dover to Calais, 
proceeded to Paris, and was received there 
with great kindness and politeness by a kins- 
man of his friend Montague, Charles, Earl of 
Manchester, who had just been appointed--) 
ambassador to the court of France. The 
countess, a Whig and a toast, was probably as 
gracious as her lord ; for Addison long retained 
an agreeable recollection of the impression 
which she at this time made on him, and, inio 
some lively lines written on the glasses of the 
Kit Cat Club, described the envy which her 
cheeks, glowing with the genuine bloom of 
England, had excited among the painted 
beauties of Versailles. 15 

Louis XIV. was at this time expiating the 
vices of his youth by a devotion which had no 
root in reason, and bore no fruit of charity. 
The servile literature of France had changed 
its character to suit the changed character of 20 
the prince. No book appeared that had not 
an air of sanctity. Racine, who was just dead, 
had passed the close of his life in writing 

7. A toast. That is a reigning beauty whose health was often drunk 
among gentlemen. 

12. Kit Cat Club. A club of gentlemen devoted to the House of Han- 
over; so named from Christopher Catt, a noted pastry cook who used to 
supply them with pies. 

22. Jean Baptiste Racine, ('1639-1699.) The greatest French tragic 
dramatist. His sacred dramas were those of " Esther " and " Athalie." 



38 ADDISON. 

sacred dramas ; and Dacier was seeking for 
the Athanasian mysteries in Plato. Addison 
described this state of things in a short but 
lively and graceful letter to Montague. An- 

5 other letter, written about the same time to the 
lord chancellor, conveyed the strongest assur- 
ances of gratitude and attachment. "The 
only return I can make to your lordship," said 
Addison, '' will be to apply myself entirely to 

10 my business." With this view he quitted 
Paris, and repaired to Blois, a place where it 
was supposed that the French l?.nguage was 
spoken in its highest purity, and where not a 
single Englishman could be found. Here he 

15 passed some months pleasantly and profitably. 
Of his way of life at Blois, one of his associates, 
an abbe named Philippeaux, gave an account 
to Joseph Spence. If this account is to be 
trusted, Addison studied much, mused much, 

20 talked little, had fits of absence, and either had 
no love affairs or was too discreet to confide 
them to the abbe. A man who, even when 
surrounded by fellow countrymen and fellow 

1. Andre Dacier, 1651-1722.^ The royal librarian and a famous 
philologist 

2. Athanasius, (246-273.) The great Alexandrian bishop, reputed 
author of the creed which bears his name. 

2. Plato, (429-347 B.C ) The great father of Academic philosophy. 

18. Joseph Spence. A professor of poetry at Oxford whose "Anec- 
dotes " are full of interesting information about the famous men of his day. 



ADDISON. 39 

students, had always been remarkably shy and 
silent, was not likely to be loquacious in a 
foreign tongue and among foreign companions. 
But it is clear from Addison's letters, some of 
which were long after published in the " Guar-s 
dian," that, while he appeared to be absorbed 
in his own meditations, he was really observing 
French society with that keen and sly, yet not 
ill-natured side glance which was peculiarly his 
own. 10 

From Blois he returned to Paris, and, having 
now mastered the French language, found 
great pleasure in the society of French philoso- 
phers and poets. He gave an account, in a 
letter to Bishop Hough, of two highly inter- 15 
esting conversations, one with Malebranche, 
the other with Boileau. Malebranche ex- 
pressed great partiality for the English, and 
extolled the genius of Newton, but shook his 
head when Hobbes was mentioned, and was 20 
indeed so unjust as to call the author of the 

6 Guardian. The second in the famous series of the three serial 
papers conducted by Richard Steele. It followed the "Spectator" and 
Addison was a frequent contributor. 

16. Nicolas Malebranche, (1638-1715.) A French philosopher of 
note. 

17. Boileau. A poet and satirist. 

19. Sir Isaac Newton, (1642-1727.) One of the greatest of English 
philosophers. He discovered the law of gravitation. 

20. Thomas Hobbes, (1588-1670.) A philosopher whose chief work, 
the " Leviathan," declared that absolutism was the only possible basis of 
society. 



40 ADDISON. 

" Leviathan " a poor silly creature. Addison's 
modesty restrained him from fully relating, in 
his letter, the circumstances of his introduction 
to Boileau. Boileau having survived the 

•■'friends and rivals of his youth — old, deaf, and 
melancholy — lived in retirement, seldom went 
either to court or to the Academy, and was 
almost inaccessible to strangers. Of the Eng- 
lish and of English literature he knew nothing. 

10 He had hardly heard the name of Dryden. 
Some of our countrymen, in, the warmth of 
their patriotism, have asserted that this ignor- 
ance must have been affected. We own that 
we see no ground for such a supposition. 

15 English literature was to the French of the age 
of Louis XIV. what German literature was to 
our own grandfathers. Very few, we suspect, 
of the accomplished men who, sixty or seventy 
years ago, used to dine in Leicester Square with 

20 Sir Joshua, or at Streatham wtth Mrs. Thrale, 
had the slightest notion that Wieland was one 

7. Academy. A French society of eminent scholars and writers 
organized in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu. Its purpose is to protect the 
purity of the language and to pronounce judgment on all literary questions. 

20. Sir Joshua Reynolds, (1723-1792.) The most famous portrait 
painter of England and intimate with all the literateurs of his time. 

20. Mrs. Thrale. The wife of a wealthy brewer of London whose 
salon attracted all the literary lights of the period. Dr. Johnson, who 
was for long her guest, said of her: "If not the wisest woman in the 
world, she was undoubtedly one of the wisest." 

21. 'Wieland. A German poet and novelist. 



ADDISON. 41 

of the first wits and poets, and Lessing, beyond 
all dispute, the first critic in Europe. Boileau 
knew just as little about the " Paradise Lost," 
and about "Absalom and Achitophel;" but 
he had read Addison's Latin poems, and 5 
admired them greatly. They had given him, 
he said, quite a new notion of the state of 
learning and taste among the English. John- 
son will have it that these praises were insin- 
cere. *' Nothing," says he, 'Ms better known 10 
of Boileau, '* than that he had an injudicious 
and peevish contempt for modern Latin ; and 
therefore his profession of regard was probably 
the effect of his civility rather than appro- 
bation." Now, nothing is better known of 15 
Boileau than that he was singularly sparing of 
compliments. We do not remember that 
either friendship or fear ever induced him to 
bestow praise on any composition which he 
did not approve. On literary questions his 20 
caustic, disdainful, and self-confident spirit 
rebelled against- that authority to which every- 
thing else in France bowed down. He had 
the spirit to tell Louis XIV., firmly and even 

I. Lessing, C1729-1781.") A Great German poet and critic. Best 
known to English readers by his dramatic criticism, his drama, " Nathan 
the Wise," and his " Laocoon," a study of the relative functions of paint- 
ing and poetry. 

4. " Absalom and Achitophel." A political satire by John Dryden. 



42 ADDISON. 

rudely, that his Majesty knew nothing about 
poetry, and admired verses which were de- 
testable. What was there in Addison's 
position that could induce the satirist whose 

5 stern and fastidious temper had been the dread 
of two generations to turn sycophant for the 
first and last time? Nor was Boileau's con- 
tempt of modern Latin either injudicious or 
peevish. He thought, indeed, that no poem 

10 of the first order would ever be written in a 
dead language. And did he think amiss? 
Has not the experience of centuries confirmed 
his opinion? Boileau also thought it probable 
that, in the best modern Latin, a writer of the 

15 Augustan age would have detected ludicrous 
improprieties. And who can think otherwise? 
What modern scholar can honestly declare that 
he sees the smallest impurity in the style of 
Livy? Yet is it not certain that, in the style 

20 of Livy, Pollio, whose taste had been formed 
on the banks of the Tiber, detected the inele- 
gant idiom of the Po? Has any modern 
scholar understood Latin better than Fred- 
erick the Great understood French? Yet is it 

15. Augustan age. During the reign of the Emperor Augustus Latin 
literature attained its highest degree of perfection. 

20. Pollio, (76 B.C. -5 A.D.) A Roman poet, historian, critic and 
orator. 

24. Frederick the Great. King of Prussia. He laid the foundation of 
the present German Empire. 



ADDISON. 43 

not notorious that Frederick the Great — after 
reading, speaking, writing French, and nothing 
but French, during more than half a century; 
after unlearning his mother tongue in order to 
learn French; after living familiarly during r. 
many years with French associates — could 
not, to the last, compose in French without 
imminent risk of committing some mistake 
which would have moved a smile in the literary 
circles of Paris? Do we believe that Erasmus lo 
and Fracastorius wrote Latin as well as Dr. 
Robertson and Sir Walter Scott wrote English? 
And are there not in the " Dissertation on 
India," the last of Dr. Robertson's works, in 
" Waverley," in " Marmion," Scotticisms atio 
which a London apprentice would laugh? 
But does it follow, because we think thus, that 
we can find nothing to admire in the noble 
alcaics of Gray, or in the playful elegiacs 
of Vincent Bourne? Surely not. Nor was 20 
Boileau so ignorant or tasteless as to be in- 

10. Erasmus, (1467-1536 ) A great Dutch scholar, friend of Luther, 
and at one time professor of Greek at Cambridge. 

11. Fracastorius, (1483-1533.) An Italian physician who attained 
some fame for his poetry. 

19.. Dr. Robertson, (1721-1793.) A Scotch minister whose histories 
became noted. 

19. Alcaics of Gray. The alcaic stanza is a very beautiful lyric meter 
first used by the Greek poet Alcaeus. 

19. Thomas Gray, (1716-1771,) was one of the first of the Romanticists 
who were devoted to everything Greek. 

20. Bourne, (1695-1747.) A scholar who wrote entirely in Latin. 



44 ADDISON. 

capable of appreciating good modern Latin. 
In the very letter to which Johnson alludes, 
Boileau says, "AV croyez pas poiirtaiit que je 
vetiille par la bldmer les vers Latins que voiis 
5 in! avez envoyes iTiin de vos illustres aeademi- 
ciens. Je les ai troiives fort beaux, et digues 
de J^ida et de Sanuazar uiais non pas 
d Horace et de J^irgileT Several poems in 
modern Latin have been praised by Boileau 

10 quite as liberally as it was his habit to praise 
anything. He says, for example, of the 
Pere Fraguier's epigrams, that Catullus seems 
to have come to life again. But the best 
proof that Boileau did not feel the undiscern- 

i''ing contempt for modern Latin verses which 
has been imputed to him, is, that he wrote 
and published Latin verses in several meters. 
Indeed it happens, curiously enough, that the 
most sev^ere censure ever pronounced by him on 

20 modern Latin is conveyed in Latin hexameter. 
We allude to the fragment which begins: — 

" Quid numeris iterum me balbutire Latinis, 
Longe Alpes citra natum de patre Sicambro, 
Musa jubes? " 

7. Vida and Sannazar. Both writers of Latin verse. 

8. Do not suppose, however, that by that I mean to criticise the Latin 
verses of one of your illustrious acadeuiicians which you have sent me. I 
have found them worthy of Vida and of Sannazar, but not of Horace or 
of Vergil. 

12. Pere Fraguier. A French Jesuit who wrote short, pointed Latin 
verses. 

24. " Why, Muse, do you bid me, bom far this side of the Alps, of a 
Sicambrian father, to lisp again in Latin numbers? " 



ADDISON. 45 

For these reasons we feel assured that 
the praise which Boileau bestowed on the 
Machince Gesticulaiites and the Gerano- 
PygniQjoniacJiia was sincere. He certainly 
opened himself to Addison with a freedoms 
which was a sure indication of esteem. Liter- 
ature was the chief subject of conversation. 
The old man talked on his favorite theme 
much and well, indeed, as his young hearer 
thought, incomparably well. Boileau had un-io 
doubtedly some of the qualities of a great 
critic. He wanted imagination ; but he had 
strong sense. His literary code w^as formed 
on narrow principles ; but in applying it he 
showed great judgment and penetration. Inu 
mere style, abstracted from the ideas of which 
style is the garb, his taste is excellent. He was 
well acquainted with the great Greek writers ; 
and, though unable fully to appreciate their 
creative genius, admired the majestic simplicity 20 
of their manner, and had learned from them 
to despise bombast and tinsel. It is easy, we 
think, to discover in the " Spectator" and the 
''Guardian" traces of the influence, in part 
salutary and in part pernicious, which the 25 
mind of Boileau had on the mind of Addison. 

3. Machinae Gesticulantes. A puppet show; Gerano Pygmao- 
mackia, " The Battle of the Cranes and Pygmies." Both titles of two 
of Addison's Latin poems 



46 ADDISON. 

While Addison was at Paris, an event took 
place which made that capital a disagreeable 
residence for an Englishman and a Whig. 
Charles, second of the name. King of Spain, 

5 died, and bequeathed his dominions to Philip, 
Duke of Anjou, a younger son of the Dauphin. 
The King of France, in direct violation of his 
engagements both Avith Great Britain and with 
the States General, accepted the bequest on 

10 behalf of his grandson. The house of Bour- 
bon was at the summit of human grandeur. 
England had been outwitted, and found herself 
in a situation at once degrading and perilous. 
The people of France, not presaging the 

15 calamities by which they were destined to 
expiate the perfidy of their sovereign, went 
mad with pride and delight. Every man 
looked as if a great estate had just Oeen 
left him. " The French conversation," said 

20 Addison, ''begins to grow insupportable; that 
w^iich was before the vainest nation in the 
world is now worse than ever." Sick of 
the arrogant exultation of the Parisians, and 

6. Dauphin. The name given to the heir apparent of the French 
throne. 

7. King of France. That is, Louis XIV. 

9. States-General. The national assembly ot Holland, composed of 
representatives of the various provinces. 

10. Bourbon. This family occupied the throne of France from Henry 
IV., 1553, to the downfall of Louis Philippe, in 1848. 



ADDISON. 47 

probably foreseeing that the peace between 
France and England could not be of long 
duration, he set off for Italy. 

In December, 1700, he embarked at Mar- 
seilles. As he glided along the Ligurians 
coast, he was delighted by the sight of myrtles 
and olive trees, which retained their verdure 
under the winter solstice. Soon, however, he 
encountered one of the black storms of the 
Mediterranean. The captain of the ship gave 10 
up all for lost, and confessed himself to a 
capuchin who happened to be on board. The 
English heretic, in the meantime, fortified him- 
self against the terrors of death with devotions 
of a very different kind. How strong an is 
impression this perilous voyage made on him 
appears from the ode, •' How are thy servants 
blest, O Lord!" which was long after pub- 
lished in the '' Spectator." After some days 
of discomfort and danger, Addison was glad to 20 
land at Savona, and to make his way, over 
mountains where no road had yet been hewn 
out by art, to the city of Genoa. 

At Genoa, still ruled by her own doge and 
by the nobles whose names were inscribed on 25 

5. Ligurian. The coast of Genoa, formerly inhabited by the Ligures. 

21. Savona. A seaport near Genoa. 

24. Doge. The chief magistrate of the old Italian republics. 



48 ADDISON. 

her Book of Gold, Addison made a short stay. 
He admired the narrow streets overhung by 
long lines of towering palaces, the walls rich 
with frescoes, the gorgeous temple of the 

6 Annunciation, and the tapestries whereon were 
recorded the long glories of the house of 
Doria. Thence he hastened to Milan, where 
he contemplated the Gothic magnificence of 
the cathedral with more wonder than pleasure. 

10 He passed Lake Benacus while a gale was 
blowing, and saw the weaves raging as they 
raged when Virgil looked upon them. At 
Venice, then the gayest city in Europe, the 
traveler spent the Carnival, the gayest season 

i^of the year, in the midst of masques, dances, 
and serenades. Here he was at once diverted 
and provoked by the absurd dramatic pieces 
which then disgraced the Italian stage. To 
one of those pieces, however, he was indebted 

2. for a valuable hint. He was present when a 
ridiculous play on the death of Cato was 

I. Book of Gold. The Libra d'Oro was the state register of the 
nobility in Genoa and Venice. 

7. House of Doria. One room in the palace of this illnstrious family 
contained tapestries wrought with the figures of all the great persons it had 
produced. 

8. The Gothic, or pointed architecture of Mediaeval times was 
regarded as little short of barbaric in Addison's time. 

ID. Lake Benacus. The largest and most beautiful lake of northern 
Italy. Now called Lugo di Garda. 

14 Carnival. A Roman Catholic festival or period of indulgence imme- 
diately preceding the Lenten season. 



ADDISON. 49 

performed. Cato, it seems, was in love with 
the daughter of Scipio. The lady had given 
her heart to Caesar. The rejected lover deter- 
mined to destroy himself. He appeared 
seated in his library, a dagger in his hand, as 
Plutarch and a Tasso before him ;r and in this 
position he pronounced a soliloquy before he 
struck the blow. We are surprised that so 
remarkable a circumstance as this should have 
escaped the notice of all Addison's biographers, lo 
There cannot, we conceive, be the smallest 
doubt that this scene, in spite of its absurdities 
and anachronisms, struck the traveler's imag- 
ination, and suggested to him the thought of 
bringing " Cato" on the English stage. It is 15 
well known that about this time he began his 
tragedy, and that he finished the first four acts 
before he returned to England. 

On his way from Venice to Rome, he was 
drawn some miles out of the beaten road by a 20 
wish to see the smallest independent state in 
Europe. On a rock where the snow still lay, 
though the Italian spring was now far advanced, 
was perched the little fortress of San Marino. 
The roads which led to the secluded town were 25 



24. San Marino. The oldest and smallest republic in the world. It is 
situated in central Italy on a high plateau and its area is only twcnty- 
scvcn square miles, 



so ADDISON. 

SO bad, that few travelers had ever visited it, 
and none had ever published an account of it. 
Addison could not suppress a good-natured 
smile at the simple manners and institutions of 

5 this singular community; but he observed, 
with the exultation of a Whig, that the rude 
mountain tract which formed the territory of 
the republic swarmed with an honest, healthy, 
and contented peasantry, while the rich plain 

10 which surrounded the metropolis of civil and 
spiritual tyranny was scarcely less desolate 
than the uncleared wilds of America. 

At Rome, Addison remained on his first 
visit only long enough to catch a glimpse of 

15 St Peter's and of the Pantheon. His haste is the 
more extraordinary, because the Holy Week 
was close at hand. He has given no hint 
which can enable us to pronounce why he 
chose to fly from a spectacle which every year 

20 allures from distant regions persons of far less 
taste and sensibility than his. Possibly, trav- 
eling, as he did, at the charge of a government 
distinguished by its enmity to the Church of 

15 St. Peter's. The largest Christian cathedral in the world. The 
foundations were laid in Rome in the year 1406, and the most famous 
artists, including Michael Angelo and Raphael, took charge of its erection 

15 Pantheon. An ancient and remarkably preserved Roman temple. 
It was built by Agrippa, 27 B.C., and dedicated to all the gods. i^/>as, 
all; theos, god.) It is now used as a church. 

16. Holy Week. The last seven days of Lent. 



ADDISON. 51 

Rome, he may have thought that it would be 
imprudent in him to assist at the most magni- 
ficent rite of that Church. Many eyes would 
be upon him, and he might find it difficult to 
behave in such a manner as to give offence s 
neither to his patrons in England nor to those 
among whom he resided. Whatever his 
motives may have been, he turned his back 
on the most august and affecting ceremony 
which is known among men, and posted along 10 
the Appian Way to Naples. 

Naples was then destitute of what are now, 
perhaps, its chief attractions. The lovely bay 
and the awful mountain were indeed there ; but 
a farmhouse stood on the theatre of Her- 15 
culaneum, and rows of vines grew over the 
streets of Pompeii. The temples of Paestum 
had not, indeed, been hidden from the eye of 
man by any great convulsion of nature ; but, 
strange to say, their existence was a secret 20 
even to artists and antiquaries. Though situ- 
ated within a few hours' journey of a great 

II. Appian Way. The oldest and most famous of all the roads of 
Ancient Rome. It was lined with the tombs of many famous men. 

17. Herculaneum and Pompeii The two citie.s near Naples which 
were completely buried by the great eruption of Vesuvius in 79 A.D. See 
the letters of the elder Pliny and Bulwer's novel, " The Last Days of 
Pompeii." 

17. Paestum. A Roman town forty miles south of Naples, celebrated 
for its Doric temples. 



52 ADDISON. 

capital, where Salvator had not long before 
painted, and where Vico was then lecturing, 
those noble remains were as little known to 
Europe as the ruined cities overgrown by the 
6 forests of Yucatan. What was to be seen at 
Naples, Addison saw. He climbed Vesuvius, 
explored the tunnel of Posilipo, and wandered 
among the vines and almond trees of Capreae. 
But neither the wonders of nature, nor those of 
10 art, could so occupy his attention as to prevent 
him from noticing, though cursorily, the abuses 
of the government and the misery of the people. 
The great kingdom which had just descended 
to Philip V. was in a state of paralytic dotage- 
is Even Castile and Aragon were sunk in wretch- 
edness. Yet, compared with the Italian de- 
pendencies of the Spanish Crown, Castile and 
Aragon might be called prosperous. It is 
clear that all the observations which Addison 
20 made in Italy tended to confirm him in the 
political opinions which he had adopted at 
home. To the last he always spoke of foreign 

1. Salvator Rosa, (1615-1673.) A great Neapolitan artist whose 
landscape painting marked a distinct stage in the history of painting. 

2. Vico, (1668-1744.) An Italian philosopher and critic. 

7. Posilipo. An ancient tunnel built before the Christian era through 
a promontory in the Bay of Naples. It is 2200 feet long, and still in use. 

8. Capreae. Now Capri. A very beautiful island at the entrance of 
the Bay of Naples. It was for ten years the residence of the Emperor 
Tiberius. 

17. Castile and Aragon. The chief states of Spain. 



ADDISON. 53 

travel as the best cure for Jacobitism. In his 
" Freeholder," the Tory fox hunter asks what 
traveling is good for, except to teach a man 
to jabber French and to talk against passive 
obedience. ,. 

From Naples, Addison returned to Rome 
by sea, along the coast which his favorite 
Virgil had celebrated. The felucca passed 
the headland where the oar and trumpet were 
placed by the Trojan adventurers on the tombio 
of Misenus, and anchored at night under the 
shelter of the fabled promontory of Circe. 
The voyage ended in the Tiber, still overhung 
with dark verdure, and still turbid with yellow 
sand, as when it met the eyes of yEneas. 1.5 
From the ruined port of Ostia the stranger 
hurried to Rome, and at Rome he remained 
during those hot and sickly months, when, 
even in the Augustan age, all who could make 
their escape fled from mad dogs and from 20 
streets black with funerals, to gather the first 

1. Jacobitism. An English political party devoted to the exiled House 
of Stuart, and who made many plots to restore James II to the throne. 

2. Freeholder. A political paper published for a short time by Addi- 
son. 

2. Tory fox hunters. See numbers 22, 44, and 47 of the " Free- 
holder." 

8. Felucca. A kind of oared vessel used in the Mediterranean. 

II. Misenus. A trumpeter said to have been buried on the promontory 
of Capo di Miseno. See " ^neid," Book VI. 

12 C rce Monte Circeio, supposed to have been the abode of the 
famous sorceress. 



54 ADDISON. 

figs of the season in the country. It is 
probable that when he, long after, poured forth 
in verse his gratitude to the Providence which 
had enabled him to breath unhurt in tainted 

5 air, he was thinking of the August and 
September which he passed at Rome. 

It was not until the latter end of October 
that he tore himself away from the master- 
pieces of ancient and modern art which are 

10 collected in the city so long the mistress of the 
world. He then journeyed northward, passed 
through Sienna, and for a moment forgot his 
prejudices in favor of classic architecture as he 
looked on the magnificent cathedral. At 

15 Florence he spent some days with the Duke of 
Shrewsbury, who, — cloyed with the pleasures 
of ambition, and impatient of its pains ; fearing 
both parties, and loving neither — had deter- 
mined to hide in an Italian retreat talents 

20 and accomplishments, which, if they had been 
united with fixed principles and civil courage, 
might have made him the foremost man of his 
age. These days, we are told, passed pleas- 
antly, and we can easily believe it ; for Addi- 

25 son was a delightful companion when he was 
at his ease ; and the duke, though he seldom 

i6. Duke of Shrewsbury. Active in the Revolution of 1689 and Sec- 
retary of State under W illiam III. 



ADDISON. 55 

forgot that he was a Talbot, had the invaluable 
art of putting at ease all who came near him. 
Addison gave some time to Florence, and 
especially to the sculptures in the Museum, 
which he preferred even to those of ther, 
Vatican. He then pursued his journey 
through a country in which the ravages of the 
last war were still discernible, and in which all 
men were looking forward with dread to a still 
fiercer conflict. Eugene had already de-^o 
scended from the Rhaetian Alps to dispute with 
Catinat the rich plain of Lombardy. The 
faithless ruler of Savoy was still reckoned 
among the allies of Louis. England had not 
yet actually declared war against France; but is 
Manchester had left Paris ; and the negotia- 
tions which produced the Grand Alliance 
against the house of Bourbon were in progress. 
Under such circumstances, it was desirable for 
an English traveler to reach neutral ground 20 

6. Vatican. The Papal palace at Rome- It is the largest building of 
the kind in the world and its art treasures are untold. 

10. Conflict. The War of the Spanish Succession was just beginning. 

10. Prince Eugene was leader of the Austrian forces, and Catinat com- 
manded the French army in Italy. 

13. Savoy. The Duke of Savoy, although at first loyal to Louis XIV., 
afterward joined the Allies, and was rewarded, at the end of the war, with 
the Island of Sicily. 

16. Manchester. The English ambassador to France. 

17. Grand Alliance. This consisted of the states of Germany, England, 
Holland, Austria, and Portugal. Its purpose was to prevent Spain from 
falling into the hands of France. 



$6 ADDISOX. 

without delay. Addison resolved to cross 
Mont Cenis. It was December; and the road 
was very different from that which now reminds 
the stranger of the power and genius of Napo- 
sleon. The winter, however, was mild; and 
the passage was, for those times, easy. To 
this journey Addison alluded, when, in the 
ode which we have already quoted, he said 
that for him the Divine Goodness had warmed 

10 the hoary Alpine hills. 

It was in the midst of the eternal snow that 
he composed his " Epistle" to his friend Mon- 
tague, now Lord Halifax. That "Epistle," 
once widely renowned, is now known only to 

15 curious readers, and will hardly be considered 
by those to whom it is known as in any per- 
ceptible degree heightening Addison's fame. 
It is, however, decidedly superior to any Eng- 
lish composition which he had previously 

20 published. Nay, we think it quite as good as 
any poem in heroic meter which appeared 
during the interval between the death of 
Dryden and the publication of the " Essay on 
Criticism." It contains passages as good as 

25 the second-rate passages of Pope, and would 

2. Mont Cenis. The mountain pass between Italy and France. In 
1871 it was pierced by a tunnel. 

23. Essay on Criticism. A didactic poem written by Pope when he 
was only twenty-one years old. 



ADDISON. 57 

have added to the reputation of Parnell or 
Prior. 

But, whatever be the Hterary merits or 
defects of the " Epistle," it undoubtedly does 
honor to the principles and spirit of the 5 
author. Halifax had now nothing to give. 
He had fallen from power, had been held up 
to obloquy, had been impeached by the House 
of Commons, and, though his peers had dis- 
missed the impeachment, had, as it seemed, 10 
little chance of ever again filling high office. 
The '* Epistle," written at such a time, is one 
among many proofs that there was no mixture 
of cowardness or meanness in the suavity and 
moderation which distinguished Addison from 15 
all the other public men of those stormy 
times. 

At Geneva the traveller learned that a par- 
tial change of ministry had taken place in 
England, and that the Earl of Manchester had 20 
become secretary of state. Manchester ex- 
erted himself to serve his young friend. It 
was thought advisable that an English agent 
should be near the person of Eugene in Italy ; 
and Addison, whose diplomatic education was 25 
now finished, was the man selected. He was 
preparing to enter on his honorable functions 



58 ADDISON. 

when all his prospects were for a time darkened 
by the death of William III. 

Anne had long felt a strong aversion — 
personal, political, and religious — to the Whig 

5 party. That aversion appeared in the first 
measures of her reign, Manchester was de- 
prived of the seals after he had held them only 
a few weeks. Neither Somers nor Halifax was 
sworn of the Privy Council, Addison shared 

10 the fate of his three patrons. His hopes of 
employment in the public service were at an 
end ; his pension was stopped ; and it was 
necessary for him to support himself by his 
own exertions. He became tutor to a young 

15 English traveler, and appears to have rambled 
with his pupil over great part of Switzerland 
and Germany. At this time he wrote his 
pleasing treatise on medals. It was not pub- 
lished till after his death ; but several distin- 

2oguished scholars saw the manuscript, and gave 
just praise to the grace of the style and to 
the learning and ingenuity evinced by the 
quotations. 

From Germany, Addison repaired to Hol- 

7. Deprived of the Seals. That is, they were asked to resign. The 
seals are the ministers' emblem of office. 

9. Privy Council. A council unlimited in number and selected by the 
crown to act as advisors in all matters of state. Its duties are now purely 
normal, all its powers having passed either to the Cabinet or to Commit- 
tees of Parliament. 



ADDISON. 59 

land, where he learned the melancholy news of 
his father's death. After passing some months 
in the United Provinces he returned, about the 
close of the year 1703, to England. He was 
there cordially received by his friends, and s 
introduced by them into the Kit Cat Club, a 
society in which were collected all the various 
talents and accomplishments which then gave 
luster to the Whig party. 

Addison was, during some months after his 10 
return from the Continent, hard pressed by 
pecuniary difhculties ; but it was soon in the 
power of his noble patrons to serve him effec- 
tually. A political change — silent and grad- 
ual, but of the highest importance — was in 15 
daily progress. The accession of Anne had 
been hailed by the Tories with transports of 
joy and hope ; and for a time it seemed that 
the Whigs had fallen never to rise again. The 
throne was surrounded by men supposed to be 20 
attached to the prerogative and to the Church ; 
and among these none stood so high in the favor 
of the sovereign as the Lord Treasurer Godol- 
phin and the Captain General Marlborough. 

3. United Provinces. The various States of Holland. 

23 Earl of Godolphin, '1645-1712.) A noted minister under both 
William and Anne, but lacking in moral principle. 

24. Duke of Marlborough, (1650-1722.) John Churchill was one of 
the most brilliant of English generals. It was he who won tlie great vic- 
tories of Malplaquet, Oudenarde, and Blenheim. ' 



60 ADDISON. 

The country gentlemen and country clergy- 
men had fully expected that the policy of 
these ministers would be directly opposed to 
that which had been almost constantly fol- 

5 lowed by William ; that the landed interest 
would be favored at the expense of trade ; 
that no addition would be made to the funded 
debt; that the privileges conceded to Dis- 
senters by the late King would be curtailed, if 

•10 not withdrawn; that the war with France, 
if there must be such a war, would, on our 
part, be almost entirely naval ; and that the 
government would avoid close connections 
with foreign powers, and, above all, with 

16 Holland. 

But the country gentlemen and country 
clergymen were fated to be deceived, not for 
the last time. The prejudices and passions 
which raged without control in vicarages, in 

20 cathedral closes, and in the manor houses of 
fox-hunting squires, were not shared by the 
chiefs of the ministry. Those statesmen saw 
that it was both for the public interest and for 
their own interest to adopt a Whig policy, at 

25 least as respected the alliances of the country 
and the conduct of the war. But, if the foreign 

g. Dissenters. The name given to all English protestantj who have 
separated froin the Established Church. -' ' - 



ADDISON. 6l 

policy of the Whigs were adopted, it was 
impossible to abstain from adopting, also, 
their financial policy. The natural conse- 
quences followed. The rigid Tories were 
alienated from the government. The votes 5 
of the Whigs became necessary to it. The 
votes of the Whigs could be secured only by 
further concessions ; and further concessions 
the Queen was induced to make. 

At the beginning of the year 1704, the 10 
state of parties bore a close analogy to the 
state of parties in 1826. In 1826, as in 1704, 
there was a Tory ministry divided into two 
hostile sections. The position of Mr. Can- 
ning and his friends in 1826 corresponded to 15 
that which Marlborough and Godolphin occu- 
pied in 1704. Nottingham and Jersey were, 
in 1704, what Lord Eldon and Lord West- 
moreland were in 1826. The Whigs of 1704 
were in a situation resembling that in which 20 
the Whigs of 1826 stood. In 1704, Somers, 
Halifax, Sunderland, Cowper, were not in 
ofilice. There was no avowed coalition between 

14. George Canning, (1770-1827.) An English statesman and prime 
minister. He did much to further Catholic emancipation and free trade. 

17. Nottingham and Jersey. Secretaries of state under William and 
Anne. 

18. Eldon and Westmoreland. The former was lord chancellor from 
1801 to 1827. The latter was lord of the Privy Seal. 

22. All ministers of the crown. 



62 ADDISON. 

them and the moderate Tories. It is probable 
that no direct communication tending to such 
a coaHtion had yet taken place ; yet all men saw 
that such a coalition was inevitable, nay, that 

5 it was already half formed. Such, or nearly 
such, was the state of things when tidings 
arrived of the great battle fought at Blenheim 
on the 13th of August, 1704. By the Whigs 
the news was hailed with transports of joy and 

10 pride. No fault, no cause of quarrel, could be 
remembered by them against the commander 
whose genius had in one day changed the face 
of Europe, saved the imperial throne, humbled 
the house of Bourbon, and secured the Act of 

15 Settlement against foreign hostility. The feel- 
ing of the Tories was very different. They 
could not, indeed, without imprudence, openly 
express regret at an event so glorious to their 
country; but their congratulations were so 

20 cold and sullen as to give deep disgust to the 
victorious general and his friends. 

Godolphin was not a reading man. What- 
ever time he could spare from business he was 

7. Blenheim was a small villaae in Bavaria where the French suffered 
a great defeat at the hands of the English and Prince Eugene. 

13. The Imperial Throne. That of the German empire, then occupied 
by the Archduke of Austria. 

15. Act of Settlement. An act passed in 1701 e.vcluding Catholics 
from the English throne and fixing the succession on the House of Hanover. 



ADDISON. 63 

in the habit of spending at Newmarket or at the 
card table. But he was not absolutely indiffer- 
ent to poetry, and he was too intelligent an 
observer not to perceive that literature was a 
formidable engine of political warfare, and that^ 
the great Whig leaders had strengthened their 
party, and raised their character, by extending 
a liberal and judicious patronage to good 
writers. He was mortified, and not without 
reason, by the exceeding badness of the 10 
poems which appeared in honor of the battle 
of Blenheim. One of these poems has been 
rescued from oblivion by the exquisite absurdity 
of three lines : — 

" Think of two thousand gentlemen at least, 15 

And each man mounted on his capering beast ; 
Into the Danube they were pushed by shoals." 

Where to procure better verses the treasurer 
did not know. He understood how to negotiate 
a loan, or remit a subsidy; he was also well 20 
versed in the history of running horses and 
fighting cocks ; but his acquaintance among 
the poets was very small. He consulted Hal- 
ifax ; but Halifax affected to decline the office 
of adviser. He had, he said, done his best, 25 
when he had power, to encourage men whose 

I. Newmarket. Here are the chief race courses in England. 



64 ADDISON. 

abilities and acquirements might do honor to 
their country. Those times were over. Other 
maxims had prevailed. Merit was suffered to 
pine in obscurity; and the public money 

5 was squandered on the undeserving. "I do 
know," he added, " a gentleman who would 
celebrate the battle in a manner worthy of the 
subject; but I will not name him." Godol- 
phin, who was expert at the soft answer which 

loturneth away wrath, and who was under the 
necessity of paying court to the Whigs, gently 
replied that there was too much ground for 
Halifax's complaints, but that what was amiss 
should in time be rectified, and that in the 

15 meantime the services of a man such as Halifax 
had described should be liberally rewarded. 
Halifax then mentioned Addison, but mindful 
of the dignity, as well as of the pecuniary 
interest, of his friend, insisted that the min- 

2oister should apply in the most courteous man- 
ner to Addison himself ; and this Godolphin 
promised to do. 

Addison then occupied a garret up three 
pair of stairs, over a small shop in the Hay- 

25 market. In this humble lodging he was 
surprised, on the morning which followed the 

35. Haymarket. A street in London, so named because carts, filled 
with hay and straw for sale, formerly stood there. 



ADDISON. 65 

conversation between Godolphin and Halifax, 
by a visit from no less a person than the 
Right Hon. Henry Boyle, then chancellor of 
the exchequer, and afterwards Lord Carlton. 
This high-born minister had been sent by the^s 
lord treasurer as ambassador to the needy 
poet. Addison readily undertook the pro- 
posed task, — a task which, to so good a Whig, 
was probably a pleasure. When the poem 
was little more than half finished he showed 10 
it to Godolphin, who was delighted with it, 
and particularly with the famous similitude of 
the angel. Addison was instantly appointed 
to a commissionership worth about two 
hundred pounds a year, and was assured that is 
this appointment was only an earnest of greater 
favors. 

The ''Campaign" came forth, and was as 
much admired by the public as by the 
minister. It pleases us less, on the whole, 20 
than the ''Epistle" to Halifax; yet it 
undoubtedly ranks high among the poems 
which appeared during the interval between 

12 Similitude of the angel. The following is the passage referred 
to:— 

" So when an angel by divine command 
With rising tempests shakes a guihy land, 
Such as of late, o'er pale Britannia pass'd. 
Calm and serene he drives the furious blast; 
And, pleased th' Almighty's orders to perform. 
Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storn},'' 



66 ADDISON. 

the death of Dryden and the dawn of Pope's 
genius. The chief merit of the " Campaign," 
we think, is that which was noticed by John- 
son, — the manly and rational rejection of 

5 fiction. The first great poet whose works 
have come down to us sang of war long before 
war became a science or a trade. If, in his 
time, there was enmity between two little 
Greek towns, each poured forth its crowd of 

10 citizens, ignorant of discipline, and armed with 
implements of labor rudely turned into 
weapons. On each side appeared conspicuous 
a few chiefs, whose wealth had enabled them 
to procure good armor, horses and chariots, 

15 and whose leisure had enabled them to 
practise military exercises. One such chief 
— if he were a man of great strength, agility, 
and courage — would probably be more for- 
midable than twenty common men ; and the 

20 force and dexterity with which he flung his 
spear might have no inconsiderable share in 
deciding the event of the day. Such were 
probably the battles with which Homer was 
familiar. But Homer related the actions of 

25 men of a former generation; of men who 
sprang from the gods, and cornrnuned with the 

S. Poet. Homer. 



ADDISON. 6j 

gods face to face ; of men, one of whom could 
with ease hurl rocks which two sturdy hinds 
of a later period would be unable even to lift. 
He therefore naturally represented their 
martial exploits as resembling in kind, but fars 
surpassing in magnitude, those of the stoutest 
and most expert combatants of his own age. 
Achilles, clad in celestial armor, drawn by 
celestial coursers, grasping the spear which 
none but himself could raise, driving all Troyio 
and Lycia before him, and choking Scamander 
with dead, was only a magnificent exaggera- 
tion of the real hero, who, strong, fearless, 
accustomed to the use of weapons, guarded by 
a shield and helmet of the best Sidonian 15 
fabric, and whirled along by horses of 
Thessalian breed, struck down with his own 
right arm foe after foe. In all rude societies 
similar notions are found. There are at this 
day countries where the Lifeguardsman Shaw 20 

8. Achilles. The hero of the Iliad, and mightiest warrior of the 
Greeks. 

II. Lycia. The Lycians were a people of Asia Minor, neighbors and 
allies of the Trojans. 

II. Scamander. A river near the city of Troy. 

15. Sidonian. Sidon was an ancient Phoenician city, famous for its 
rich purple dye and its glass manufactures. 

17 Thessalian Thessaly was one of the northern provinces of ancient 
Greece, noted for its fine horses. 

20. Shaw. A pugilist of some notoriety who won distinction for 
bravery in the Battle of Waterloo. 



68 . ADDISON. 

would be considered as a much greater 
warrior than the Duke of Welhngton. Bona- 
parte loved to describe the astonishment with 
which the Mamelukes looked at his diminutive 

5 figure. Mourad Bey, distinguished above all 
his fellows by his bodily strength, and by the 
skill with which he managed his horse and 
his saber, could not believe that a man, who 
was scarcely five feet high and rode like a 

10 butcher, could be the greatest soldier in 
Europe. 

Homer's descriptions of war had, therefore, 
as much truth as poetry requires. But truth 
was altogether wanting to the performances of 

15 those who, writing about battles which had 
scarcely anything in common with the battles 
of his times, servilely imitated his manner. 
The folly of Silius Italicus, in particular, is 
positively nauseous. He undertook to record 

20 in verse the vicissitudes of a great struggle 
between generals of the first order; and his 

4 Mamelukes. They were originally slaves purchased by the Sultan 
of Egypt and organized into an army. It was not long, however, before 
they overthrew the Sultan and set up a dynasty of their own. They were 
masters in Egypt until i8ii, when they were massacred at Cairo by 
Mehemet Ali. Napoleon defeated them in the great battle of the Pyramids 
in 1797. 

5. Mourad Bey. Leader of the Mamelukes in the battle of the 
Pyramids. 

18. Silius Italicus Author of the epic poem on the second Punic War, 
from which the following incidents are taken. See a Roman history of 
thii period. 



ADDISON. 69 

narrative is made up of the hideous wounds 
which these generals inflicted with their own 
hands. Asdrubal flings a spear which grazes 
the shoulder of the consul Nero ; but Nero 
sends his spear into Asdrubal's side. Fabius5 
slays Thuris and Butes, and Maris and Arses, 
and the long-haired Adherbes, and the gigantic 
Thylis, and Sapharus and Monaesus, and the 
trumpeter Morinus. Hannibal runs Perusinus 
through the groin with a stake, and breaks 10 
the backbone of Telesinus with a huge stone. 
This detestable fashion was copied in modern 
times, and continued to prevail down to the 
age of Addison. Several versifiers had de- 
scribed William as turning thousands to flight is 
by his single prowess, and dying the Boyne 
with Irish blood. Nay, so estimable a writer 
as John Philips, the author of the *' Splendid 
Shilling," represented Marlborough as having 
won the battle of Blenheim merely by strength 20 
of muscle and skill in fence. The following 
lines may serve as an example: — 

*' Churchill, viewing where 
The violence of Tallard most prevailed, 

16. Boyne. A river in Ireland where the final battle was fought in 
which William III defeated James II. 

18. John Philips. A minor poet of the time. The Torys induced him 
to write a poem on Blenheim as an offset to Addison's. 
24. Tallard. The French marshal. 



70 ADDISON. 

Came to oppose his slaughtering arm. With speed 

Precipitate he rode, urging his way 

O'er hills of gasping heroes, and fallen steeds 

Rolling in death. Destruction, grim with blood, 

Attends his furious course. Around his head 

The glowing balls play innocent, while he 

With dire impetuous sway deals fatal blows 

Among the flying Gauls. In Gallic blood 

He dyes his reeking sword, and strews the ground 

With Headless ranks. What can they do? Or how 

Withstand his wide destroying sword? " 



Addison, with excellent sense and taste, 
departed from this ridiculous fashion. He 
reserved his praise for the qualities which 
15 made Marlborough truly great, — energy, 
sagacity, military science ; but, above all, the 
poet extolled the firmness of that mind, which 
in the midst of confusion, uproar and slaughter, 
examined and disposed everything with the 
20 serene wisdom of a higher intelligence. 

Here it was that he introduced the famous 
comparison of Marlborough to an angel guid- 
ing the whirlwind. We will not dispute the 
general justice of Johnson's remarks on this 
25 passage. But we must point out one circum- 
stance which appears to have escaped all the 
critics. The extraordinary effect which this 
simile produced when it first appeared, and 
which to the following generation seemed 
30 inexplicable, is doubtless to be chiefly attri- 



ADDISON. 71 

buted to a line which most readers now regard 
as a feeble parenthesis: — 

" Such as, of late, o'er pale Britannia pass'd." 

Addison spoke, not of a storm, but of the 
storm. The great tempest of November, 17035 
— the only tempest which in our latitude has 
equaled the rage of a tropical hurricane — had 
left a dreadful recollection in the minds of all 
men. No other tempest was ever, in this 
country, the occasion of a parliamentary ad- 10 
dress or of a public fast. Whole fleets had 
been cast away. Large mansions had been 
blown down. One prelate had been buried 
beneath the ruins of his palace. London and 
Bristol had presented the appearance of cities i5 
just sacked. Hundreds of families were still 
in mourning. The prostrate trunks of large 
trees, and the ruins of houses still attested, in 
all the southern counties, the fury of the blast. 
The popularity which the simile of the angel 20 
enjoyed among Addison's contemporaries has 
always seemed to us to be a remarkable in- 
stance of the advantage which, in rhetoric 
and poetry, the particular has over the 
general. '^^ 

Soon after the " Campaign," was published 



72 ADDISON. 

Addison's narrative of his travels in Italy. 
The first effect produced by this narrative was 
dissapointment. The crowd of readers who 
expected politics and scandal, speculations on 

5 the projects of Victor Amadeus, and anecdotes 
about the jollities of convents and the amours 
of cardinals and nuns, were confounded by 
finding that the writer's mind was much more 
occupied by the war between the Trojans and 

10 Rutulians than by the war between France and 
Austria ; and that he seemed to have heard no 
scandal of later date than the gallantries of the 
Empress Faustina. In time, however, the 
judgment of the many was overruled by that 

16 of the few; and before the book was reprinted 
it was so eagerly sought that it sold for five 
times the original price. It is still read with 
pleasure. The style is pure and flowing; the 
classical quotations and illusions are numerous 

20 and happy ; and we are now and then charmed 
by that singularly humane and delicate humor 
in which Addison excelled all men. Yet this 
agreeable work, even when considered merely 
as the history of a literary tour, may justly be 

5. Victor Amadeus. Duke of Savoy. 

10. Rutulians. A tribe of ancient Italy living on the coast of Latium. 
According to the story, they were conquered by JEneas and his followers. 

13. Faustina. The wife of Marcus Aurelius. 



ADDISON. 73 

censured on account of its faults of omission. 
We have already said that, though rich in 
extracts from the Latin poets, it contains 
scarcely any references to the Latin orators 
and historians. We must add that it contains 5 
little, or rather no information respecting the 
history and literature of modern Italy. To 
the best of our remembrance, Addison does 
not mention Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Boi- 
ardo, Berni, Lorenzo de Medici, or Machia-io 
velli. He coldly tells us that at Ferrara he 
saw the tomb of Ariosto, and that at Venice 
he heard the gondoliers sing verses of Tasso. 
But for Tasso and Ariosto he cared far less 
than for Valerius Flaccus and Sidonius Apol-i5 
linaris. The gentle flow of the Ticin brings a 

9. Dante Alighieri, (1265-1321.) The greatest of Italian poets. 
Author of the " Divine Comedy," an imaginary journey through hell, 
purgatory, and paradise. 

9. Petrarch, (1304-1 374.) An Italian lyric poet. 

9 Boccaccio, (1313-1375-) An early Italian novelist. His chief 
work is the " Decameron." 

9 Boiardo, (1434-1494 ) His chief poem is " Orlando Furioso." 

10. Berni. A writer of graceful Latin verses. 

10 Lorenzo de Medici, (1448-1492.) A great nobleman of Florence 
who made the city the richest and most beautiful in Italy. His father was 
Pope Leo IX. 

11. Machiavelli, ^1469-1527.) A Florentine statesman whose name has 
become a synonym for deceit. 

15, Flaccus. A Roman poet of the time of the Emperor Vespasian. 

15. Apollinaris. An early Christian writer of the fifth century. 

16. Ticin. A river which flows from Switzerland through Lake Mag- 
giore, into the Po. Hannibal fought a battle here. 



74 ADDISON. 

line of Silius to his mind. The sulphurous, 
steam of Albula suggests to him several 
passages of Martial. But he has not a word 
to say of the illustrious dead of Santa Croce ; 

she crosses the wood of Ravenna without 
recollecting the Specter Huntsman, and 
wanders up and down Rimini without one 
thought of Francesca. At Paris he had 
eagerly sought an introduction to Boileau ; 

10 but he seems not to have been at all aware 
that at Florence he was in the vicinity of a 
poet with whom Boileau could not sustain a 
comparison, — of the greatest lyric poet of 
modern times, Vincenzio Filicaja. This is the 

15 more remarkable because Filicaja was the 
favorite poet of the accomplished Somers, 
under whose protection Addison travelled, and 
to whom the account of the travels is dedi- 
cated. The truth is, that Addison knew little, 

20 and cared less, about the literature of modern 
Italy. His favorite models were Latin. His 

3. Martial, (40 A. D.) A famous Latin writer of epigrams. 

4. Santa Croce. A church in Florence where many of the most illus- 
trious men of Italy are buried. 

5. Ravenna. An old Italian town The burial place of Dante. The 
tale of the " Spector Huntsman " is in Boccaccio's " Decameron." 

7. Rimini. A city on the Adriatic. For the story of Francesca di 
Rimini see Dante's " Inferno," Canto V. It is one of the most tragic in 
all literature. 

14. Filicaja, (1642-1707.) His ode to Italy is used by Byron in the 
ourth canto of " Childe Harold " 



ADDISON. 75 

favorite critics were French. Half the Tuscan 
poetry that he had read seemed to him 
monstrous, and the other half tawdry. 

His travels were followed by the lively 
opera of " Rosamond." This piece was ill sets 
to music, and therefore failed on the stage ; but 
it completely succeeded in print, and is indeed 
excellent in its kind. The smoothness with 
which the verses glide, and the elasticity with 
which they bound, is, to our ears at least, very lo 
pleasing. We are inclined to think that if 
Addison had left heroic couplets to Pope, and 
blank verse to Rowe and had employed him- 
self in writing airy and spirited songs, his 
reputation as a poet would have stood fans 
higher than it now does. Some years after 
his death, ** Rosamond " was set to new music 
by Dr. Arne, and was performed with com- 
plete success. Several passages long retained 
their popularity and were daily sung, during 20 
the latter part of the reign of George II., at all 
the harpsichords in England. 

While Addison thus amused himself, his 
prospects and the prospects of his party were 
constantly becoming brighter and brighter. 25 

5. The music for this opera was written by Dr Arne when he was only 
eighteen. 

13. Nicholas Rowe, (1674-1718.) A dramatist and poet laureate under 
George I. He issued the first critical edition of Shakespeare. 



'j6 ADDISON. 

In the spring of 1705, the ministers were freed 
from the restraint imposed by a House of 
Commons in which Tories of the most perverse 
class had the ascendency. The elections were 

5 favorable to the Whigs. The coalition which 
had been tacitly and gradually formed was 
now openly avowed. The Great Seal was 
given to Cowper. Somers and Halifax were 
sworn of the Council. Halifax was sent in the 

10 following year to carry the decorations of the 
Order of the Garter to the Electoral Prince of 
Hanover, and was accompanied on this honor- 
able mission by Addison, who had just been 
made undersecretary of state. The secretary 

15 of state under whom Addison first served was 
Sir Charles Hedges, a Tory; but Hedges was 
soon dismissed to make room for the most 
vehement of Whigs, Charles, Earl of Sunder- 
land. In every department of the state, 

•20 indeed, the High Churchmen were compelled 
to give place to their opponents. At the 
close of 1707, the Tories who still remained in 



7. The Great Seal is the emblem of royalty and is placed only on the 
most important documents. 

II. Order of the Garter. An order of knighthood founded by Edward 
III. in 1344. Membership is restricted to the sovereign, Prince of Wales, 
certain chosen princes and twenty-five regular knights. Others must be 
admitted by special statute. 

n. Prince of Hanover. George I. 



ADDISON. J^ 

office strove to rally, with Harley at their 
head ; but the attempt, though favored by the 
Queen, — who had always been a Tory at 
heart, and who had now quarreled with the 
Duchess of Marlborough, — was unsuccessful, s 
The time was not yet. The captain general 
was at the height of popularity and glory. 
The Low Church party had a majority in 
Parliament. The country squires and rectors, 
though occasionally uttering a savage growl, 
were for the most part in a state of torpor 
which lasted till they were roused into activity, 
and indeed into madness, by the prosecution 
of Sacheverell. Harley and his adherents were 
compelled to retire. The victory of the Whigs is 
was complete. At the general election of 
1708, their strength in the House of Commons 
became irresistible ; and before the end of that 
year Somers was made lord president of the 
Council, and Wharton lord lieutenant of Ireland. 20 
Addison sat for Malmesbury in the House 

I. Harley. Earl of Oxford. A favorite of Queen Anne but impeached 
for treason by George I. 

5. Duchess of Marlborough. For many years she ruled the queen 
and dispensed favors at her own pleasure. 

6. Captain general. Duke of Marlborough. 

14 Sacheverell, (1672-1724.) A college mate of Addison's who gave 
great offence by preaching sermons denouncing toleration to dissenters. 
He was impeached by the House of Commons and suspended for three 
years. 

20. Thomas 'Wharton, (1640-1715.) A Whig statesman and one of 
the first adherents of William of Orange. 



78 ADDISON. 

of Commons which was elected in 1708; but 
the House of Commons was not the field for 
him. The bashfulness of his nature made his 
wit and eloquence useless in debate. He once 

5 rose, but could not overcome his diffidence, 
and ever after remained silent. Nobody can 
think it strange that a great writer can fail as 
a speaker; but many probably will think it 
strange that Addison's failure as a speaker 

10 should have had no unfavorable effect on his 
success as politician. In our time, a man of 
high rank and great fortune might, though 
speaking very little and very ill, hold a consid- 
erable post ; but it would now be inconceivable 

15 that a mere adventurer — a man who, when out 
of qffice, must live by his pen — should in a few 
years become successively under secretary of 
state, chief secretary for Ireland, and secretary 
of state, without some oratorical talent. Addi- 

20 son, without high birth and with little property, 
rose to a post which dukes, the heads of the 
great houses of Talbot, Russell, and Bentinck, 
have thought it an honor to fill. Without open- 
ing his lips in debate, he rose to a post, the 

26 highest that Chatham or Fox ever reached; 

25 Earl of Chatham, (1708-1778 ) William Pitt, one of the greatest 
English orators and Premier under George III. A staunch friend of the 
American colonies 

25. Charles James Fox, (1749-1806 ) A brilliant orator, the Liberal 
leader and cival of Pitt. He advocated the abolition of the slave trade. 



ADDISON. 79 

and this he did before he had been nine years 
in ParHament. We must look for the explana- 
tion of this seeming miracle to the peculiar 
circumstances in which that generation was 
placed. During the interval which elapsed 6 
between the time when the censorship of the 
press ceased, and the time when parliamentary 
proceedings began to be freely reported, liter- 
ary talents were, to a public man, of much 
more importance, and oratorical talents ofio 
much less importance, than in our time. At 
present, the best way of giving rapid and wide 
publicity to a fact or an argument is to intro- 
duce that fact or argument into a speech made 
in Parliament. If a political tract were to is 
appear superior to " The Conduct of the 
Allies," or to the best numbers of the '' Free- 
holder," the circulation of such a tract would 
be languid indeed, when compared with the 
circulation of every remarkable word uttered 20 
in the deliberations of the legislature. A 
speech made in the House of Commons at 
four in the morning is on thirty thousand 
tables before ten. A speech made on the 
Monday is read on the Wednesday by multi-25 
tudes in Antrim and Aberdeenshire. The 

16 Conduct of the Allies. A political pamphlet written by Dean 
Swift advising the nation to make peace with France- 

26. Antrim and Aberdeenshire. Towns, the one in Ireland, the other 
in Scotland. 



8o ADDISON. 

orator, by the help of the shorthand writer, 
has to a great extent superseded the pam- 
phleteer. It was not so in the reign of Anne. 
The best speech could then produce no effect 

5 except on those who heard it. It was only by 
means of the press that the opinion of the 
public without doors could be influenced ; and 
the opinion of the public without doors could 
not but be of the highest importance in a 

10 country governed by parliaments, and indeed 
at that time governed by triennial parliaments. 
The pen was therefore a more formidable 
political engine than the tongue. Mr. Pitt 
and Mr. Fox contended only in Parliament. 

i-^But Walpole and Pulteney, the Pitt and Fox 
of an earlier period, had not done half of what 
was necessary when they sat down among the 
acclamations of the House of Commons. 
They had still to plead their cause before the 

20 country, and this they could do only by 
means of the press. Their works are now 
forgotten ; but it is certain that there were 
in Grub Street few more assiduous scribblers 

15. Sir Robert Walpole, (1676-1745.) A leading Whig and prime 
minister to George I. 

15. William Pulteney, (1682-1764 ) Leader of the opposition against 
Walpole. 

23. Grub Street. A street of cheap lodging houses in London fre 
quented by penniless writers who were willing to do almost any kind of 
" hack" work. 



ADDISON. 8 1 

of Thoughts, Letters, Answers, Remarks, than 
these two great chiefs of parties. Pulteney, 
when leader of the Opposition, and possessed 
of thirty thousand a year, edited the " Crafts- 
man." Walpole, though not a man of hterarys 
habits, was the author of at least ten pam- 
phlets, and retouched and corrected many 
more. These facts sufficiently show of how 
great importance literary assistance then was 
to the contending parties. St. John was cer-io 
tainly, in Anne's reign, the best Tory speaker; 
Cowper was probably the best Whig speaker : 
but it may well be doubted whether St. John 
did so much for the Tories as Swift, and 
whether Cowper did so much for the Whigs i5 
as Addison. When these things are duly 
considered, it will not be thought strange that 
Addison should have climbed higher in the 
State than any other Englishman has ever, by^^ 
means merely of literary talents, been able to 
climb. Swift would in all probability have 
climbed as high if he had not been encumbered 
by his cassock and his pudding sleeves. As 
far as the homage of the great went, Swift 25 

10. St. John. Earl of Bolingbroke. A leading Tory statesman and 
associate of Pulteney in his opposition to Walpole. 

24. Pudding sleeves. An allusion to the dress of an Anglican or 
Catholic clergyman. 



82 ADDISON. 

had as much of it as if he had been lord 
treasurer. 

To the influence which Addison derived 
from his literary talents was added all the 

5 influence which arises from character. The 
world, always ready to think the worst of 
needy political adventurers, was forced to 
make one exception. Restlessness, violence, 
audacity, laxity of principle, are the vices 

10 ordinarily attributed to that class of men. 
But faction itself could not deny that Addison 
had, through all changes of fortune, been 
strictly faithful to his early opinions and to his 
early friends ; that his integrity was without 

15 stain; that his whole deportment indicated a 
fine sense of the becoming ; that, in the 
utmost heat of controversy, his zeal was 
tempered by a regard for truth, humanity, and 
social decorum ; that no outrage could ever pro- 

2ovoke him to retaliation unworthy of a Christian 
and a gentleman ; and that his only faults were 
a too sensitive delicacy and a modesty which 
amounted to bashfulness. 

He was undoubtedly one of the most 

25 popular men of his time; and much of his 
popularity he owed, we believe, to that very 
timidity which his friends lamented. That 



ADDISON. 83 

timidity often prevented him from exhibiting 
his talents to the best advantage ; but it 
propitiated Nemesis. It averted that envy 
which would otherwise have been excited by 
fame so splendid, and by so rapid an elevation. 5 
No man is so great a favorite with the public 
as he who is at once an object of admiration, 
of respect, and of pity ; and such were the 
feelings which Addison inspired. Those who 
enjoyed the privilege of hearing his familiar 10 
conversation declared with one voice that it 
was superior even to his writings. The 
brilliant Mary Montagu said that she had 
known all the wits, and that Addison was the 
best company in the world. The malignant 15 
Pope was forced to own that there was a 
charm in Addison's talk which could be found 
nowhere else. Swift, when burning with 
animosity against the Whigs, could not but 
confess to Stella that, after all, he had never 20 
known any associate so agreeable as Addison. 
Steele, an excellent judge of lively conversa- 
tion, said that the conversation of Addison 

3. Nemesis. The Greek goddess of vengeance. 

13. Mary Montagu, (1690-1762 ) A beautiful and brilliant woman, 
author of a series of letters to eminent men. She first introduced into 
England inoculation for smallpox. 

20. Stella. Miss Mary Johnson to whom Swift addressed his "Journal 
to Stella." 

22 Richard Steele, '1671-1724.) A writerof note, editor of the Tatler 
and a friend of Addison. 



84 ADDISON. 

was at once the most polite and the most 
mirthful that could be imagined ; that it was 
Terence and Catullus in one, heightened by 
an exquisite something which was neither 

5 Terence nor Catullus, but Addison alone. 
Young, an excellent judge of serious conversa- 
tion, said that, when Addison was at his ease, 
he went on in a noble strain of thought and 
language, so as to chain the attention of every 

10 hearer. Nor were Addison's great colloquial 
powers more admirable than the courtesy and 
softness of heart which appeared in his con- 
\^ersation. At the same time, it would be too 
much to say that he was wholly devoid of the 

15 malice which is, perhaps, inseparable from a 
keen sense of the ludicrous. He had one habit 
which both Swift and Stella applauded, and 
which we hardly know how to blame. If his 
first attempts to set a presuming dunce right 

20 were ill received, he changed his tone, 
'' assented with civil leer," and lured the 
flattered coxcomb deeper and deeper into 
absurdity. That such was his practice we 

3. Terence, (185-159 B C ) One of the greatest writers of comedies. 
He was originally a Roman slave. 

6. Edward Young. A poet, best known as the author of " Night 
Thoughts " 

21 This quotation is from Pope who said that Addison was one to 
" Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, 
And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer." 



ADDISON. 85 

should, we think, have guessed from his works. 
The *' Tatler's " criticisms on Mr. Softly's 
sonnet, and the " Spectator's " dialogue with 
the politician who is so zealous for the honor 
of Lady O — p — t — s, are excellent specimens 5 
of this innocent mischief. 

Such were Addison's talents for conversa- 
tion. But his rare gifts were not exhibited to 
crowds or to strangers. As soon as he entered 
a large company, as soon as he saw an 10 
unknown face, his lips were sealed, and his 
manners became constrained. None who met 
him only in great assemblies would have been 
able to believe that he was the same man who 
had often kept a few friends listening and 15 
laughing round a table from the time when 
the play ended till the clock of St. Paul's in 
Covent Garden struck four. Yet, even at such 
a table, he was not seen to the best advantage. 
To enjoy his conversation in the highest per- 20 
fection, it was necessary to be alone with him, 
and to hear him, in his own phrase, think aloud. 
'' There is no such thing," he used to say, '* as 
real conversation but between two persons." 

This timidity — a timidity surely neither 25 

2. Mr. Softly. A character in t^e Tatler. 

5 Lady Q-p-t-s. Spectator, Nos 567, 568. 

18. Covent Garden. Covtiit is a corruption of convent. The garden 
once belonged to Westminster Abbey, but is now a square in London well- 
known for Its fruit and flower markets. 



86 ADDISON. 

ungraceful nor unamiable — led Addison into 
the two most serious faults which can with 
justice be imputed to him. He found that 
wine broke the spell which lay on his fine 

5 intellect, and was therefore too easily seduced 
into convivial excess. Such excess was in 
that age regarded, even by grave men, as the 
most venial of all peccadillos, and was so far 
from being a mark of ill breeding that it was 

10 almost essential to the character of a fine 
gentleman. But the smallest speck is seen on 
a white ground ; and almost all the biograph- 
ers of Addison have said something about this 
failing. Of any other statesman or writer of 

15 Queen Anne's reign, we should no more think 

of saying that he sometimes took too much 

wine than that he wore a long wig and a sword. 

To the excessive modesty of Addison's 

nature we must ascribe another fault, which 

20 generally arises from a very different cause. 
He became a little too fond of seeing himself 
surrounded by a small circle of admirers to 
whom he was as a king or rather as a god. 
All these men were far inferior to him in 

25 ability, and some of them had very serious 
faults. Nor did those faults escape his obser- 
vation ; for, if ever there was an eye which saw 



ADDISON. 87 

through and through men, it was the eye of 
Addison. But, with the keenest observation 
and the finest sense of the ridiculous, he had 
a large charity. The feeling with which he 
looked on most of his humble companions was 5 
one of benevolence, slightly tinctured with 
contempt. He was at perfect ease in their 
company; he was grateful for their devoted 
attachment ; and he loaded them with benefits. 
Their veneration for him appears to have 10 
exceeded that with which Johnson was 
regarded by Boswell, or Warburton by Hurd. 
It was not in the power of adulation to turn 
such a head, or deprave such a heart, as 
Addison's; but it must in candor be admitted, 15 
that he contracted some of the faults which 
can scarcely be avoided by any person who is 
so unfortunate as to be the oracle of a small 
literary coterie. 

One member of this little society was>o 
Eustace Budgell, a young templar of some 
literature, and a distant relation of Addison. 
There was at this time no stain on the 

12. James Boswell, (1740-1795.) The famous biographer of Dr 
Johnson. He was a Scotch lawyer who left his home only to get a sight 
of the great doctor, and afterward spent his Hfe in studying Johnson's 
character and treasuring all his sayings. Hence his biography is a mas- 
terpiece of its kind 

12. William Warburton, (1698-1779.) A celebrated English divine. 
His writings were edited with a highly eulogistic introduction by his friend, 
Richard Hurd, Bishop of Worcester. 



88 ADDISON.- 

character of Budgell ; and it is not improb- 
able that his career would have been prosper- 
ous and honorable, if the life of his cousin had 
been prolonged. But when the master was 

5 laid in the grave, the disciple broke loose from 
all restraint, descended rapidly from one 
degree of vice and misery to another, ruined 
his fortune by follies, attempted to repair it by 
crimes, and at length closed a wicked and 

10 unhappy life by self-murder. Yet, to the last, 
the wretched man — gambler, lampooner, cheat, 
forger, as he was — retained his affection and 
veneration for Addison, and recorded those feel- 
ings in the last lines which he traced before he 

15 hid himself from infamy under London Bridge. 

Another of Addison's favorite companions 

was Ambrose Philips, a good Whig and a 

middling poet, who had the honor of bringing 

into fashion a species of composition which 

20 has been called, after his name, Namby Pamby. 
But the most remarkable members of the little 
senate, as Pope long afterwards called it, were 
Richard Steele and Thomas Tickell. 

14 Last lines. On his desk were found the words, "What Cato did, 
and Addison approved, cannot be wrong " 

17 Ambrose Philips, 1671-1749.) He wrote a play, " The Distressed 
Mother," to which Addison takes Sir Roger de Coverley in No. 335 of the 
Spectator 

23. Tickell, (1686-1740.) Known chiefly for his " Elegy to Addison," 
of which Johnson said, " There is not a njore sublime or more eloquent 
funeral poem to be found in the whole compass of English literature." 



ADDISON. 89 

Steele had known Addison from childhood. 
They had been together at the Charter House 
and at Oxford ; but circumstances had then, 
for a time, separated them widely. Steele had 
left college without taking a degree, had been 5 
disinherited by a rich relation, had led a 
vagrant life, had served in the army, had tried 
to find the philosopher's stone, and had 
written a religious treatise and several come- 
dies. He was one of those people whom it is 10 
impossible either to hate or to respect. His 
temper was sweet, his affections warm, his 
spirits lively, his passions strong, and his 
principles weak. His life was spent in sinning 
and repenting; in inculcating what was right, ^5 
and doing what was wrong. In speculation 
he was a man of piety and honor ; in practice 
he was much of the rake and a little of the 
swindler. He was, however, so good-natured 
that it was not easy to be seriously angry with 20 
him, and that even rigid moralists felt more 
inclined to pity than to blame him when he 
diced himself into a sponging house, or drank 
himself into a fever. Addison regarded Steele 
with kindness not unmingled with scorn, tried, 25 

23. Sponging house. The name given to the house where persons 
arrested for debc were allowed to remain twenty-four hours before going 
to prison, in order that they might have an opportunity of settling the 
debt through their friends. 



90 ADDISON. 

with little success, to keep him out of scrapes, 
introduced him to the great, procured a good 
place for him, corrected his plays, and, though 
by no means rich, lent him large sums of 

5 money. One of these loans appears, from a 
letter dated August, 1708, to have amounted 
to a thousand pounds. These pecuniary 
transactions probably led to frequent bicker- 
ings. It is said that, on one occasion, Steele's 

10 negligence or dishonesty provoked Addison 
to repay himself by the help of a bailiff. We 
cannot join with Miss Aiken in rejecting this 
story. Johnson heard it from Savage, who 
heard it from Steele. Few private transactions 

15 which took place a hundred and twenty years 
ago are proved by stronger evidence than this. 
But we can by no means agree with those who 
condemn Addison's severity. The most 
amiable of mankmd may well be moved to 

20 indignation when what he has earned hardly, 
and lent with great inconvenience to himself, 
for the purpose of relieving a friend in distress, 
is squandered with insane profusion. We will 
illustrate our meaning by an example which 

26 is not the less striking because it is taken from 
fiction. Dr. Harrison, in Fielding's '* Amelia," 

13. Richard Savage. A minor poet of the time. 

26. Henry Fielding, (1714-1754.) One of the earliest and greatest of 
English novelists. His best works are " Tom Jones and Amelia." 



ADDISON. 91 

is represented as the most benevolent of 
human beings; yet he takes in execution, not 
only the goods, but the person, of his friend 
Booth. Dr. Harrison resorts to this strong 
measure because he has been informed that^ 
Booth, while pleading poverty as an excuse 
for not paying just debts, has been buying fine 
jewelry and setting up a coach. No person 
who is well acquainted with Steele's life and 
correspondence can doubt that he behaved 10 
quite as ill to Addison as Booth was accused 
of behaving to Dr. Harrison. The real history, 
we have little doubt, was something like this: 
a letter comes to Addison, imploring help in 
pathetic terms, and promising reformation andi5 
speedy repayment. Poor Dick declares that he 
has not an inch of candle, or a bushel of coals, 
or credit with the butcher for a shoulder of 
mutton. Addison is moved. He determines 
to deny himself some medals which are want- 20 
ing to his series of the Twelve Caesars, to put 
off buying the new edition of Bayle's Diction- 
ary, and to wear his old sword and buckles 
another year : in this way he manages to send 
a hundred pounds to his friend. The next 25 
day he calls on Steele, and finds scores of 

2G. Pierre Bayle. A learned French philosopher. The work referred 
to is his " Historical and Critical Dictionary." 



92 ADDISON. 

gentlemen and ladies assembled. The fiddles 
are playing. The table is groaning under 
Champagne, Burgundy, and pyramids of 
sweetmeats. Is it strange that a man whose 

5 kindness is thus abused should send sheriff's 
officers to reclaim w^hat is due to him ? 

Tickell was a young man, fresh from 
Oxford, who had introduced himself to public 
notice by writing a most ingenious and grace- 

loful little poem in praise of the opera of 
'* Rosamond." He deserved, and at length 
attained, the first place in Addison's friendship. 
For a time Steele and Tickell were on good 
terms ; but they loved Addison too much to 

15 love each other, and at length became as 
bitter enemies as the rival bulls in Virgil. 

At the close of 1708 Wharton became lord 
lieutenant of Ireland, and appointed Addison 
chief secretary. Addison was consequently 

20 under the necessity of quitting London for 
Dublin. Besides the chief secretaryship, 
which was then worth about two thousand 
pounds a year, he obtained a patent appoint- 
ing him keeper of the Irish Records for life, 

25 with a salary of three or four hundred a year. 
Budgell accompanied his cousin in the 
capacity of private secretary. 

16. Rival bulls. Georgics, III., 220-225. 



ADDISON. 93 

Wharton and Addison had nothing in 
common but Whiggism. The lord Heutenant 
was not only licentious and corrupt, but was 
distinguished from other libertines and jobbers 
by a callous impudence which presented the 5 
strongest contrast to the secretary's gentleness 
and delicacy. Many parts of the Irish 
administration at this time appear to have 
deserved serious blame ; but against Addison 
there was not a murmur. He long afterwards 10 
asserted, what all the evidence which we have 
ever seen tends to prove, that his diligence and 
integrity gained the friendship of all the most 
considerable persons in Ireland. 

The parliamentary career of Addison in 15 
Ireland has, we think, wholly escaped the 
notice of all his biographers. He was elected 
member for the borough of Cavan in the 
summer of 1709; and in the journals of two 
sessions his name frequently occurs. Some 20 
of the entries appear to indicate that he so 
far overcame his timidity as to make speeches. 
Nor is this by any means improbable, for the 
Irish House of Commons was a far less for- 
midable audience than the English House, and 25 
many tongues which were tied by fear in the 
greater assembly became fluent in the smaller. 



94 ADDISON. 

Gerard Hamilton, for example, who, from fear 
of losing the fame gained by his single speech, 
sat mute at Westminster during forty years, 
spoke with great effect at Dublin when he was 

5 secretary to Lord Halifax. 

While Addison was in Ireland, an event 
occurred to which he owes his high and 
permanent rank among British writers. As 
yet his fame rested on performances, which, 

10 though highly respectable, were not built for 
duration, and which would, if he had produced 
nothing else, have now been almost forgotten, 
— on some excellent Latin verses, on some 
English verses which occasionally rose above 

15 mediocrity, and on a book of travels, agree- 
ably written, but not indicating any extraordi- 
nary powers of mind. These works showed 
him to be a man of taste, sense, and learning. 
The time had come when he was to prove 

20 himself a man of genius, and to enrich our 
literature with compositions which will live as 
long as the English language. 

In the spring of 1709, Steele formed a 
literary project, of which he was far indeed 

25 from foreseeing the consequences. Periodical 
papers had during many years been published 
in London. Most of these were political ; but 



ADDISON. 95 

in some of them questions of morality, taste, 
and love casuistry had been discussed. The 
literary merit of these works was small indeed, 
and even their names are now known only to 
the curious. «> 

Steele had been appointed gazetteer by 
Sunderland, at the request, it is said, of Addi- 
son, and thus had access to foreign intelligence 
earlier and more authentic than was in those 
times within the reach of an ordinary news-io 
writer. This circumstance seems to have 
suggested to him the scheme of publishing a 
periodical paper on a new plan. It was to 
appear on the days on which the po-st left 
London for the country, which were, in that 15 
generation, the Tuesdays, Thursdays, and 
Saturdays. It was to contain the foreign 
news, accounts of theatrical representations, 
and the literary gossip of Will's and of the 
Grecian. It was also to contain remarks on 20 
the fashionable topics of the day, compliments 
to beauties, pasquinades on noted sharpers, 
and criticisms on popular preachers. The 
aim of Steele does not appear to have been at 

6. Gazetteer. One appointed by the state to edit the official organ 
known as the Gazette. It is still issued twice a week and contains all 
proclamations, orders, and legal notices. 

19. Will's and the Grecian. Well-known coffee-houses. 

2a. Pasquinades. Lampoons, named from their employment by a 
noted Italian wit, Pasquinado. 



96 ■ ADDISON. 

first higher than this. He was not ill qualified 
to conduct the work which he had planned. 
His public intelligence he drew from the best 
sources. He knew the town, and had paid 

5 dear for his knowledge. He had read much 
more than the dissipated men of that time 
were in the habit of reading. He was a rake 
among scholars, and a scholar among rakes. 
His style was easy and not incorrect, and, 

10 though his wit and humor were of no high 
order, his gay animal spirits imparted to his 
compositions an air of vivacity which ordinary 
readers could hardly distinguish from comic 
genius. His writings have been well compared 

16 to those light wines, which, though deficient 

in body and flavor, are yet a pleasant small 

drink, if not kept too long, or carried too far. 

Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., astrologer, was an 

imaginary person, almost as well known in 

20 that age, as Mr. Paul Pry or Mr. Samuel 
Pickwick, in ours. Swift had assumed the 
name of Bickerstaff in a satirical pamphlet 
against Partridge, the maker of almanacs. 

2o. Paul Pry. A comedy of John Pool. 

23. John Partridge had for a number of years issued vague prophecies. 
These Swift lidiculed by publishing a pamphlet, called Predictions for 
the year 1708, which among other things, declaied that Partridge would 
die on the night of March 29. Shortly after that date he issued another 
pamphlet giving a very pathetic account of Partridge s death. The victim 
of this joke was foolish enough to write a reply declaring that he was still 
alive, and was overwhelmed with ridicule. 



ADDISON. 97 

Partridge had been fool enough to pubHsh a 
furious reply. Bickerstaff had rejoined in a 
second pamphlet still more diverting than the 
first. All the wits had combined to keep up 
the joke; and the town was long in convul-5 
sions of laughter. Steele determined to 
employ the name which this controversy had 
made popular; and in 1709 it was announced 
that Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., astrologer, was 
about to publish a paper called the " Tatler." 10 

Addison had not been consulted about this 
scheme ; but, as soon as he heard of it, he 
determined to give his assistance. The effect 
of that assistance cannot be better described 
than in Steele's own words. *' I fared," he 15 
said, " like a distressed prince who calls in a 
powerful neighbor to his aid. I was undone 
by my auxiliary. When I had once called him 
in, I could not subsist without dependence on 
him." "The paper," he says elsewhere, '*was20 
advanced indeed. It was raised to a greater 
thing than I intended it." 

It is probable that Addison, when he sent 
across St. George's Channel his first contribu- 
tions to the " Tatler," had no notion of the25 
extent and variety of his own powers. He 
was the possessor of a vast mine, rich with a 



98 ADDISON, 

hundred ores ; but he had been acquainted 
only with the least precious part of his 
treasures, and had hitherto contented himself 
with producing sometimes copper, and some- 

5 times lead, intermingled with a little silver. 
All at once, and by mere accident, he has 
lighted on an inexhaustible vein of the finest 
gold. 

The mere choice and arrangement of his 

10 words woiild have sufficed to make his essays 
classical; for never — not even by Dryden, 
not even by Temple — had the English lan- 
guage been written with such sweetness, grace, 
and facility. But this was the smallest part 

15 of Addison's praise. Had he clothed his 
thoughts in the half French style of Horace 
Walpole, or in the half Latin style of Dr. 
Johnson, or in the half German jargon of the 
present day, his genius would have triumphed 

20 over all faults of manner. As a moral satirist 
he stands unrivaled. If ever the best '*Tat- 
lers " and " Spectators " were equa-led in their 
own kind, we should be inclined to guess that 

12. Sir William Temple, (1628-1609 ) A statesman whose essays are 
models of elegant English. 

17. Horace 'Walpole. Youngest son of Sir Robert Walpole, famous 
for his Letters. 

18. German jargon. No doubt a reference to Carlyle whose style was 
influenced by his fondness for German literature. 



ADDISON. 99 

it must have been by the lost comedies of 
Menander. 

In wit, properly so called, Addison was 
not inferior to Cowley or Butler. No single 
ode of Cowley contains so many happy 5 
analogies as are crowded into the lines to Sir 
Godfrey Kneller ; and we would undertake to 
collect from the " Spectators " as great a 
number of ingenious illustrations as can be 
found in *' Hudibras." The still higher faculty lo 
of invention Addison possessed in still larger 
measure. The numerous fictions, generally 
original, often wild and grotesque, but always 
singularly graceful and happy, which are found 
in his essays, fully entitle him to the rank of a 15 
great poet, — a rank to which his metrical 
compositions give him no claim. As an 
observer of life, of manners, of all the shades 
of human character, he stands in the first 
class; and what he observed he had the art 20 
of communicating in two widely different ways. 
He could describe virtues, vices, habits, whims, 

2. Menander. A noted Greek writer of comedy. Not one of his hun- 
dred works has come down to us. 

4. Cowley, 1618-1667.) A poet of the so-called " conceited " school 
of the seventeenth century. 

4. Samuel Butler, 1612-1680."* A satirist of the Puritans. His 
mock-heroic poem, " Hudibras," afforded great amusement to Charles H. 
and his court. 

7. Kneller. A German artist, court painter to Charles II. 

L.ofC. 



lOO ADDISON. 

as well as Clarendon. But he could do some- 
thing better : he could call human beings into 
existence, and make them exhibit themselves. 
If we wish to find anything more vivid than 

5 Addison's best portraits, we must go either to 
Shakespeare or to Cervantes. 

But what shall we say of Addison's humor, 
of his sense of the ludicrous, of his power of 
awakening that sense in others, and of drawing 

10 mirth from incidents which occur every day, 
and from little peculiarities of temper and 
manner such as may be found in every man? 
We feel the charm ; we give ourselves up to 
it ; but we strive in vain to analyze it. 

15 Perhaps the best way of describing Addi- 
son's peculiar pleasantry is to compare it 
with the pleasantry of some other great 
satirists. The three most eminent masters of 
the art of ridicule during the eighteenth 

20 century were, we conceive, Addison, Swift, 
and Voltaire. Which of the three had the 
greatest power of moving laughter may be 
questioned; but each of them, within his own 
domain, was supreme. 

I. Earl of Clarendon, (1618-1674." Lor J Chancellor of James I , and 
author of a history of the war between Charles I. and Parliament. 

6. Cervantes, ('1547-1616.) A great Spanish writer. His " Don 
Quixote," a romance ridiculing the practices of chivalry, is one of the 
greatest works in any literature. 

21. Voltaire, (1694-1778;. A noted French poet and philosopher. 



ADDISON. lOI 

Voltaire is the prince of buffoons. His 
merriment is without disguise or restraint. 
He gambols ; he grins ; he shakes the sides ; 
he points the finger; he turns up the nose ; he 
shoots out the tongue. The manner of Swifts 
is the very opposite to this. He moves 
laughter, but never joins in it. He appears 
in his works such as he appeared in society. 
All the company are convulsed with merri- 
ment; while the Dean, the author of all the lo 
mirth, preserves an invincible gravity and even 
sourness of aspect, and gives utterance to the 
most eccentric and ludicrous fancies with the 
air of a man reading the commination service. 

The manner of Addison is as remote from is 
that of Swift as from that of Voltaire. He 
neither laughs out like the French wit, nor, 
like the Irish wit, throws a double portion of 
severity into his countenance while laughing 
inwardly, but preserves a look peculiarly his 20 
own, — a look of demure serenity, disturbed 
only by an arch sparkle of the eye, an almost 
imperceptible elevation of the brow, an almost 
imperceptible curl of the lip. His tone is 
never that either of a Jack Pudciing or of a 25 

14. Commination service. A service of the Church of England read 
on Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. 

25. Jack Pudding. A juggler, a coarse a:.d vulgar person 



I02 ADDISON. 

Cynic. It is that of a gentleman in whom the 

quickest sense of the ridiculous is constantly 

tempered by good nature and good breeding. 

We own that the humor of Addison is, in 

5 our opinion, of more delicious flavor than the 
humor of either Swift or Voltaire. Thus much, 
at least, is certain, that both Swift and Voltaire 
have been successfully mimicked, and that no 
man has yet been able to mimic Addison. The 

10 letter of the Abbe Coyer to Pansophe is Voltaire 
all over, and imposed, during a long time, on the 
Academicians of Paris. There are passages in 
Arbuthnot's satirical works which we, at least, 
cannot distinguish from Swift's best writing. 

15 But of the many eminent men who have made 
Addison their model, though several have 
copied his mere diction with happy effect, 
none has been able to catch the tone of his 
pleasantry. In the ''World," in the " Conno- 

2oisseur," in the "Mirror," in the "Lounger," 
there are numerous papers written in obvious 
imitation of his " Tatlers " and " Spectators." 
Most of these papers have some merit; many 

I. Cynics. A sect of Greek philosophers who disregarded the cust' ms 
of society. 

lo. Abbe Coyer. A well-known French Jesuit. 

13. John Arbuthnot, '1667-1735.) A physician of great learning and 
wit. He was a friend of Swift and Pope, and his "Memoirs of Martinus 
Scriberlius " is a brilliant piece of sarcastic humor. 

20. All contemporary periodicals of low grade. 



ADDISON. 103 

are very lively and amusing; but there is not 
a single one which could be passed off as 
Addison's on a critic of the smallest perspi- 
cacity. 

But that which chiefly distinguishes Addi-.^ 
son from Swift, from Voltaire, from almost all 
the other great masters of ridicule, is the 
grace, the nobleness, the moral purity, which 
we find even in his merriment. Severity, 
gradually hardening and darkening into mis- 10 
anthropy, characterizes the work of Swift. 
The nature of Voltaire was, indeed, not 
inhuman ; but he venerated nothing. Neither 
in the masterpieces of art nor in the purest 
examples of virtue, neither in the Great First 15 
Cause nor in the awful enigma of the grave, 
could he see anything but subjects for drollery. 
The more solemn and august the theme, the 
more monkey-like was his grimacing and 
chattering. The mirth of Swift is the mirth 20 
of Mephistopheles ; the mirth of Voltaire is 
the mirth of Puck. If, as Soame Jenyns oddly 
imagined, a portion of the happiness of 
seraphim and just men made perfect be derived 

21. Mephistopheles. One of the names given to the personification of 
the principle of evil. 

22. Puck. An elf in Shakespeare's " Midsummer Night's Dream." 

22. Soame Jenyns, (1704-1787.) Author of a work on the Inter al 
Evidence of the Christian Religion. 



I04 ADDISON. 

from an exquisite perception of the ludicrous, 
their mirth must surely be none other than 
the mirth of Addison, — a mirth consistent 
with tender compassion for all that is frail, 

sand with profound reverence for all that is 
sublime. Nothing great, nothing amiable, no 
moral duty, no doctrine of natural or revealed 
religion, has ever been associated by Addison 
with any degrading idea. His humanity is 

10 without a parallel in literary history. The 
highest proof of virtue is to possess boundless 
power without abusing it. No kind of power 
is more formidable than the power of making 
men ridiculous ; and that power Addison 

16 possessed in boundless measure. How grossly 
that power was abused by Swift and by 
Voltaire is well known. But of Addison it 
may be confidently affirmed that he has 
blackened no man's character, nay, that it 

20 would be difficult, if not impossible, to find in 
all the volumes which he has left us a single 
taunt which can be called ungenerous or 
unkind. Yet he had detractors, whose malig- 
nity might have seemed to justify as terrible a 

25 revenge as that which men not superior to 
him in genius wreaked on Bettesvvorth and on 

26. Bettesvvorth. An Irish barrister, a victim of Swift's satire. 



ADDISON. 105 

Franc de Pompignan. He was a politician ; 
he was the best writer of his party ; he Hved 
in times of fierce excitement, in times when 
persons of high character and station stooped 
to scurriHty such as is now practiced only by 5 
the basest of mankind : yet no provocation 
and no example could induce him to return 
railing for railing. 

Of the service which his essays rendered to 
morality it is dif^cult to speak too highly. It 10 
is true that, when the " Tatler " appeared, 
that age of outrageous profaneness and licen- 
tiousness which followed the Restoration had 
passed away. Jeremy Collier had shamed the 
theaters into something which, compared with 15 
the excesses of Etherege and Wycherley, 
might be called decency ; yet there still 
lingered in the public mind a pernicious 
notion that there was some connection between 
genius and profligacy, between the domestic 20 
virtues and the sullen formality of the Puritans. 
That error it is the glory of Addison to have 
dispelled. He taught the nation that the faith 

I. Franc de Pompignan. A conceited French poet ridiculed by 
Voltaire. 

14. Collier. An English clergyman who helped by his writings to bring 
about a reform in the stage. 

16. Etherege. A dramatist of the Restoration. 

16. Wycherley. A writer of licentious comedies. 



I06 ADDISON. 

and the morality of Hale and Tillotson might 
be found in company with wit more sparkling 
than the wit of Ccngreve, and with humor 
richer than the humor of Vanbrugh. So effec- 

stually, indeed, did he retort on vice the 
mockery which had recently been directed 
against virtue, that since his time the open 
violation of decency has always been consid- 
ered among us as the mark of a fool. And 

10 this revolution, the greatest and most salutary 
ever affected by any satirist, he accomplished, 
be it remembered, without writing one per- 
sonal lampoon. 

In the early contributions of Addison to the 

i5"Tatler" his peculiar powers w^ere not fully 
exhibited ; yet from the first his superiority to 
all his coadjutors w^as evident. Some of his 
later " Tatlers" are fully equal to anything that 
he ever wrote. Among the portraits, w^e most 

20 admire Tom Folio, Ned Softly, and the Poli- 
tical Upholsterer. The proceedings of the 
" Court of Honor," the ** Thermometer of Zeal," 

I. Sir Matthew Hale, (1609-1676 . A celebrated lawyer. 

I. Tillotson, (1630-1694.) Archbishop of Canterbury. 

4. Vanbrugh. A dramatist of great grossness. 

20. Tom Folio. Toiler, No. 158. 

20. Ned Softly. Tailer, No. 163. 

21. Political Upholsterer. Tatler, Nos. 155 and 160. 

22. Court of Honor. Tatler, Nos. 250, 253, 256, 259, 262. 265. 
22. Thermometer of Zeal. Tatler, "Ho. 220. 



ADDISON. 107 

the story of the ** Frozen Words," the *' Mem- 
oirs of the Shilling," are excellent specimens 
of that ingenious and lively species of fiction 
in which Addison excelled all men. There is 
one still better paper of the same class; but 5 
though that paper, a hundred and thirty-three 
years ago, was probably thought as edifying 
as one of Smalridge's sermons, we dare not 
indicate it to the squeamish readers of the 
nineteenth century. 10 

During the session of Parliament which com- 
menced in November, 1709, and which the 
impeachment of Sacheverell has made memo- 
rable, Addison appears to have resided in Lon- 
don. The ** Tatler " was now more popular is 
than any periodical paper had ever been, and 
his connection with it was generally known : it 
was not known, however, that almost every- 
thing good in the " Tatler " was his. The truth 
is, that the fifty or sixty numbers which we 20 
owe to him were not merely the best, but so 
decidedly the best, that any five of them are 
more valuable than all the two hundred num- 
bers in which he had no share. 

He required at this time all the solace which 25 
he could derive from literary success. The 

1. Frozen Words. Tatler, No. 254. 

2. Memoirs of a Shilling. Tatler, No 249. 



I08 ADDISON. 

Queen had always disliked the Whigs. She 
had during some years disliked the Marlbor- 
ough famil}' ; but, reigning by a disputed title, 
she could not venture directly to oppose her- 
5 self to a majority of both houses of Parliament ; 
and, engaged as she was in a war on the event 
of which her own crown was staked, she could 
not venture to disgrace a great and successful 
general. But at length, in the year 1710, the 

10 causes which had restrained her from showing 
her aversion to the Low^ Church party ceased 
to operate. The trial of Sacheverell produced 
an outbreak of public feeling scarcely less vio- 
lent than the outbreaks which we can ourselves 

15 remember in 1820 and in 1831. The country 
gentlemen, the country clergymen, the rabble 
of the towns, were all, for once, on the same 
side. It was clear that, if a general election 
took place before the excitement abated, the 

•20 Tories would have a majority. The services 
of Marlborough had been so splendid that 
they were no longer necessary. The Queen's 
throne was secure from all attack on the part 
of Louis : indeed, it seemed much more likely 

25 that the English and German armies would 
divide the spoils of Versailles and Marli than 

26. Marli. The seat of a beautiful chateau of Louis XIV. 



ADDISON. 109 

that a marshal of France would bring back the 
Pretender to St. James's. The Queen, acting 
by the advice of Harley, determined to dismiss 
her servants. In June the change commenced. 
Sunderland was the first who fell. The Tories 5 
exulted over his fall. The Whigs tried, during 
a few weeks, to persuade themselves that her 
Majesty had acted only from personal dislike 
to the secretary, and that she meditated no 
further alteration ; but early in August, Godol-io 
phin received a letter from Anne, which 
directed him to break his white staff. Even 
after this event, the irresolution or dissimula- 
tion of Harley kept up the hopes of the Whigs 
during another month, and then the ruin 15 
became rapid and violent. The Parliament 
was dissolved. The ministers were turned out. 
The Tories were called to ofhce. The tide of 
popularity ran violently in favor of the High 
Church party. The party, feeble in the late 20 
House of Commons, was now irresistible. 
The power which the Tories had thus sud- 
denly acquired, they used with blind and 
stupid ferocity. The howl which the whole 
pack set up for prey and for blood appalled ^5 

2. Pretender. The son of James II who made several attempts to 
gain the throne from William III. 

2. St James's. The London residence of the English sovereign. 



no ADDISON. 

even him who had roused and unchained them. 
When, at this distance of time, we calmly 
review the conduct of the discarded ministers, 
we cannot but feel a movement of indignation 
sat the injustice with which they were treated. 
No body of men had ever administered the 
government with more energy, ability, and 
moderation ; and their success has been pro- 
portioned to their wisdom. They had saved 

10 Holland and Germany. They had humbled 
France. They had, as it seemed, all but torn 
Spain from the house of Bourbon. They had 
made England the first power in Europe. At 
home they had united England and Scotland. 

15 They had respected the rights of conscience 
and the liberty of the subject. They retired, 
leaving their country at the height of pros- 
perity and glory. And yet they were pursued 
to their retreat by such a roar of obloquy as 

20 never was raised against the government 
which threw^ away thirteen colonies, or against 
the government which sent a gallant army to 
perish in the ditches of Walcheren. 

None of the Whigs suffered more in the 

25 general wreck than Addison. He had just 

14. The union of England and Scotland uiider one sovereign was 
accomplished July 22, 1706. 

23. Walcheren. A Dutch province. Seven thousand men died here 
of malaria in the expedition against Napoleon in 1806. 



ADDISON. I I I 

sustained some heavy pecuniary losses, of the 
nature of which we are imperfectly informed, 
when his secretaryship was taken from him. 
He had reason to believe that he should also 
be deprived of the small Irish office which he 5 
held by patent. He had just resigned his 
fellowship. It seems probable he had already 
ventured to raise his eyes to a great lady, and 
that while his political friends were in power, 
and while his own fortunes were rising, he had 10 
been, in the phrase of the romances which were 
then fashionable, ** permitted to hope." But 
Mr. Addison, the ingenious writer, and Mr. 
Addison, the chief secretary, were, in her lady- 
ship's opinion, two very different persons. All 15 
these calamities united, however, could not 
disturb the serene cheerfulness of a mind con- 
scious of ninocence, and rich in its own 
wealth. He told his friends, with smiling 
resignation, that they ought to admire his 20 
philosophy; that he had lost at once his for- 
tune, his place, his fellowship, and his mis- 
tress ; that he must think of turning tutor 
again : and yet that his spirits were as good as 
ever. 26 

He had one consolation. Of the unpopu- 
larity which his friends had incurred, he had 



112 ADDISON. 

no share. Such was the esteem with which 
he was regarded, that, while the most violent 
measures were taken for the purpose of forcing 
Tory members on Whig corporations, he was 

5 returned to Parliament without even a contest. 
Swift, who was now in London, and who had 
already determined on quitting the Whigs, 
wrote to Stella in these remarkable words : 
" The Tories carry it among the new members 

10 six to one. Mr. Addison's election has passed 
easy and undisputed, and I believe, if he had 
a mind to be king, he would hardly be 
refused." 

The good will with which the Tories 

15 regarded Addison is the more honorable to 
him, because it had not been purchased by 
any concession on his part. During the 
general election, he published a political 
journal entitled the *' Whig Examiner." Of 

20 that journal it may be sufficient to say, that 
Johnson, in spite of his strong political 
prejudices, pronounced it to be superior in wit 
to any of Swift's writings on the other side. 
When it ceased to appear. Swift, in a letter to 

25 Stella, expressed his exultation at the death 
of so formidable an antagonist. " He might 
well rejoice," says Johnson, " at the death of 



ADDISON. 113 

that which he could not have killed." ** On 
no occasion," he adds, " was the genius of 
Addison more vigorously exerted, and on 
none did the superiority of his powers more 
evidently appear." 5 

The only use which Addison appears to 
have made of the favor with which he was 
regarded by the Tories was to save some of 
his friends from the general ruin of the Whig 
party. He felt himself to be in a situation 10 
which made it his duty to take a decided part 
in politics. But the case of Steele and 
of Ambrose Philips was different. For Philips, 
Addison even condescended to solicit, with 
what success w^e have not ascertained. Steele is 
held two places : he was gazetteer, and he was 
also a commissioner of stamps. The gazette 
was taken from him ; but he was suffered to 
retain his place in the Stamp Office on an 
implied understanding that he should not be 20 
active against the new government ; and he 
was, during more than two years, induced by 
Addisgn to observe this armistice with 
tolerable fidelity. 

Isaac Bickerstaff accordingly became silent 25 
upon politics, and the article of news which 
had once formed about one third of his paper 



114 ADDISON. 

altogether disappeared. The " Tatler " had 
completely changed its character : it was now 
nothing but a series of essays on books, 
morals, and manners. Steele, therefore, 

5 resolved to bring it to a close, and to com- 
mence a new work on an improved plan. It 
was announced that this new work would be 
published daily. The undertaking was gener- 
ally regarded as bold, or rather rash ; but the 

10 event amply justified the confidence with 
which Steele relied on the fertility of Addi- 
son's genius. On the 2d of January, i/ii, 
appeared the last *' Tatler." At the beginning 
of March following, appeared the first of an 

15 incomparable series of papers, containing 
observations on life and literature by an 
imaginary Spectator. 

The Spectator himself was conceived and 
drawn by Addison ; and it is not easy to 

20 doubt that the portrait was meant to be in 
some features a likeness of the painter. The 
Spectator is a gentleman who, after passing a 
studious youth at the university, has travelled 
on classic ground, and has bestowed much 

26 attention on curious points of antiquity. He 
has, on his return, fixed his residence in 
London, and has observed all the forms of life 



ADDISON. I I 5 

which are to be found in that great city, has 
daily Hstened to the wits of Will's, has 
smoked with the philosophers of the Grecian, 
and has mingled with the parsons at Child's 
and with the politicians at the St. James's. In 5 
the morning he often listens to the hum of the 
Exchange ; in the ev^ening his face is con- 
stantly to be seen in the pit of the Drury 
Lane Theater. But an insurmountable bash- 
fulness prevents him from opening his mouth, 10 
except in a small circle of intimate friends. 

These friends were first sketched by Steele. 
Four of the club — the templar, the clergy- 
man, the soldier, and the merchant — were 
uninteresting figures, fit only for a back- 15 
ground ; but the other two — an old country 
baronet and an old town rake — though not 
delineated with a very delicate pencil, had 
some good strokes. Addison took the rude 
outlines into his own hands, retouched them, 20 
colored them, and is in truth the creator of the 
Sir Roger de Coverley and the Will Honey- 
comb with whom we are all familiar. 

The plan of the Spectator must be allowed 
to be both original and eminently happy. 25 
Every valuable essay in the series may be 

5. Child's and St. James's Well-known clubs of that time. 



Il6 ADDISON, 

read with pleasure separately ; yet the five or 
six hundred essays form a whole, and a w^hole 
which has the interest of a novel. It must be 
remembered, too, that at that time no novel 

5 giving a lively and powerful picture of the 
common life and manners of England had 
appeared. Richardson was working as a 
compositor. Fielding w^as robbing bird's 
nests. Smollett was not yet born. The nar- 

lorative, therefore, which connects together the 
Spectator's essays gave to our ancestors their 
first taste of an exquisite and untried pleasure. 
That narrative was indeed constructed with no 
art or labor. The events were such events as 

15 occur every day. Sir Roger comes up to 
town to see Eugenio, as the worthy baronet 
always calls Prince Eugene, goes with the 
Spectator on the water to Spring Gardens, 
walks among the tombs in the Abbey, and is 

20 frightened by the Mohawks, but conquers his 
apprehension so far as to go the theater when 
the *' Distressed Mother " is acted. The Spec- 
tator pays a visit in the summer to Coverley 

7. Samuel Richardson, (1689-1761.) The first novelist in the mod- 
ern sense. His most celebrated stories are " Pamela, " Clarissa Har- 
lowe " and "Sir Charles Grandison." 

9. Smollett, (1721-1771.) Another novelist of the period. 

18. Spring Gardens. A London place of amusement. 

20. Mohawks. A club of ruffians who infested the streets of London 
at night. 



ADDISON. 117 

Hall, is charmed with the old house, the old 
butler, and the old chaplain, eats a jack caught 
by Will Wimble, rides to the assizes, and hears 
a point of law discussed by Tom Touchy. At 
last a letter from the honest butler brings to ,■> 
the club the news that Sir Roger is dead. 
Will Honeycomb marries and reforms at sixty. 
The club breaks up, and the Spectator resigns 
his functions. Such events can hardly be said 
to form a plot; yet they are related with such 10 
truth, such grace, such wit, such humor, such 
pathos, such knowledge of the human heart, 
such knowledge of the ways of the world, that 
they charm us on the hundredth perusal. We 
have not the least doubt, that, if Addison had 15 
written a novel on an extensive plan, it would 
have been superior to any that we possess. 
♦As it is, he is entitled to be considered not 
only as the greatest of the English essayists, 
but as the forerunner of the great English 20 
novelists. 

We say this of Addison alone ; for Addison 
is the Spectator. About three sevenths of the 
work are his ; and it is no exaggeration to say 
that his worst essay is as good as the best 25 
essay of any of his coadjutors. His best 
essays approach near to absolute perfection ; 



Il8 ADDISON. 

nor is their excellence more wonderful than 
their variety. His invention never seems to 
flag; nor is he ever under the necessity o^ 
repeating himself, or of wearing out a subject. 

5 There are no dregs in his wine. He regales 
us after the fashion of that prodigal nabob 
who held that there was only one good glass 
in a bottle. As soon as we have tasted the 
first sparkling foam of a jest, it is withdrawn, 

10 and a fresh draught of nectar is at our lips. 
On the Monday we have an allegory as lively 
and ingenious as Lucian's " Au'ction of 
Lives" ; on the Tuesday, an Eastern apologue 
as richly colored as the tales of Scheherezade ; 

15 on the Wednesday, a character described with 
the skill of La Bruyere ; on the Thursday, a 
scene from common life equal to the best 
chapters in the " Vicar of Wakefield " ; on the 
Friday, some sly Horatian pleasantry on fash- 

2oionable follies, on hoops, patches, or puppet 
shows ; and on the Saturday, a religious medi- 
tation which will bear a comparison with the 
finest passages in Massillon, 

12. Lucian. A Greek satirist of the time of the Emperor Trajan. 

14. Scheherezade. The Arabian queen who postponed her death by 
telling the king a story every night which she broke off at such an inter- 
esting point that she was spared each day that she might finish the tale. 

16. La Bruyere, (1644-1696.) A distinguished French moralist. 

18. Vicar of W^akefield. A novel by Oliver Goldsmith. 

22. Massillon, (1663-1742.) A French preacher of great eloquence. 



ADDISON. 119 

It is dangerous to select where there is so 
much that deserves the highest praise. We 
will venture, however, to say that any person 
who wishes to form a just notion of the extent 
and variety of Addison's powers will do well^ 
to read at one sitting the following papers, — 
the two ''Visits to the Abbey," the " Visit to 
the Exchange," the " Journal of the Retired 
Citizen," the "Vision of Mirza," the "Trans- 
migrations of Pug the Monkey," and the 10 
" Death of Sir Roger de Coverley." 

The least valuable of Addison's contribu- 
tions to the " Spectator" are, in the judgment 
of our age, his critical papers ; yet his critical 
papers are always luminous, and often ingen-i^ 
ious. The very worst of them must be 
regarded as creditable to him, when the char- 
acter of the school in which he had been 
trained is fairly considered. The best of them 
were much too good for his readers. In truth, 20 
he was not so far behind our generation as he 
was before his own. No essays in the " Spec- 
tator " were more censured and derided than 
those in which he raised his voice against the 
contempt with which our fine old ballads were 25 
regarded, and showed the scoffers that the 
same gold which, burnished and polished, 



I20 ADDISON. 

gives lustre to the " vEneid " and the " Odes 
of Horace" is mingled with the rude dross of 
" Chevy Chace." 

It is not strange that the success of the 
•^"Spectator" should have been such as no 
similar work has ever obtained. The number 
of copies daily distributed was at first three 
thousand. It subsequently increased, and had 
risen to near four thousand when the stamp 

10 tax was imposed. That tax was fatal to a 
crowd of journals. The '' Spectator," how- 
ever, stood its ground, doubled its price, and, 
though its circulation fell off, still yielded a 
large revenue both to the state and to the 

15 authors. For particular papers, the demand 
was immense; of some, it is said, twenty 
thousand copies were required. But this was 
not all. To have the " Spectator " served up 
every morning with the bohea and rolls was a 

20 luxury for the few. The majority were con- 
tent to wait till essays enough had appeared 
to form a volume. Ten thousand copies of 
each volume were immediately taken off, and 
new editions were called for. It must be 

3. Chevy Chace. An old English ballad describing the frays between 
Lord Percy and the Douglas on the Scottish border. 

10 Stamp tax. A duty requiring a half-penny stamp on each half 
sheet of printed matter. Its object was to reduce the number of journals 
attacking the government, 



ADDISON. 121 

remembered that the population of England 
was then hardly a third of what it now is. 
The number of Englishmen who were in the 
habit of reading was probably not a sixth of 
what it now is. A shopkeeper or a farmers 
who found any pleasure in literature was a 
rarity. Nay, there was doubtless more than 
one knight of the shire whose country seat did 
not contain ten books, receipt books and books 
on farriery included. In these circumstances, lo 
the sale of the " Spectator" must be consid- 
ered as indicating a popularity quite as great 
as that of the most successful works of Sir 
Walter Scott and Mr. Dickens in our own time. 

At the close of 17 12 the '* Spectator " 15 
ceased to appear. It was probably felt that 
the short-faced gentleman and his club had 
been long enough before the tow^n and that it 
was time to withdraw them, and to replace 
them by a new set of characters. In a few 20 
weeks the first number of the " Guardian " was 
published ; but the " Guardian " was unfortu- 
nate both in its birth and in its death. It 
began in dullness, and disappeared in a tem- 
pest of faction. The original plan was bad. 25 
Addison contributed nothing till sixty-six 
numbers had appeared ; and it was then 



122 ADDISON. 

impossible to make the " Guardian " what the 
" Spectator " had been. Nestor Ironside and 
the Miss Lizards were people to whom even 
he could impart no interest. He could onU- 

5 furnish some excellent little essays, both 
serious and comic ; and this he did. 

Why Addison gave no assistance to the 
" Guardian " during the first two months of. its 
existence is a question which has puzzled the 

10 editors and biographers, but which seems to 
us to admit of a very easy solution. He was 
then engaged in bringing his " Cato " on the 
stage. 

The first four acts of this drama had been 

15 lying in his desk since his return from Italy. 
His modest and sensitive nature shrank from 
the risk of a public and shameful failure ; and, 
though all who saw the manuscript were loud 
in praise, some thought it possible that an 

20 audience might become impatient even of ver\' 
good rhetoric, and advised Addison to print 
the play without hazarding a representation. 
At length, after many fits of apprehension, the 
poet yielded to the urgency of his political 

25 friends, who hoped that the public would dis- 
cover some analogy between the followers of 

12. Cato. A drama describing the career of Cato ihe younger who, 
after Pompey's defeat, went to Africa and finally took his own life. 



ADDISON. 123 

Caesar and the Tories, between Sempronius 
and the apostate Whigs, between Cato strug- 
gHng to the last for the Hberties of Rome, 
and the band of patriots who still stood firm 
round Halifax and Wharton. s 

Addison gave the play to the managers of 
Drury Lane Theatre, without stipulating for 
any advantage to himself. They therefore 
thought themselves bound to spare no cost in 
scenery and dresses. The decorations, it is 10 
true, w^ould not have pleased the skillful eye of 
Mr. Macready. Juba's waistcoat blazed with 
gold lace ; Marcia's hoop was worthy of a 
duchess on the birthday; and Cato wore a 
wig worth fifty guineas. The prologue was 15 
written by Pope, and is undoubtedly a digni- 
fied and spirited composition. The part of 
the hero was excellently played by Booth. 
Steele undertook to pack a house. The 
boxes were in a blaze with the stars of the 20 
peers in opposition. The pit was crowded 
with attentive and friendly listeners from the 
Inns of Court and the literary coffee-houses. 
Sir Gilbert Heathcote, governor of the Bank of 

I. Sempronius. A Roman senator and a character in the play. 

12. Macready, (1793-1873.) One of the greatest of Sljalcespearian 
actors. 

18. Booth. The favorite actor of the day. 



124 ADDISON. 

England, was at the head of a powerful body 
of auxiliaries from the city, warm men and 
true Whigs, but better known at Jonathan's 
and Garraway's than in the haunts of wits and 

•''critics. 

These precautions were quite superfluous. 
The Tories, as a body, regarded Addison with 
no unkind feelings. Nor was it for their 
interest — professing, as they did, profound 

10 reverence for law and prescription, and abhor- 
rence both of popular insurrections and of 
standing armies — to appropriate to them- 
selves reflections thrown on the great military 
chief and demagogue who, with the support of 

15 the legions and of the common people, sub- 
verted all the ancient institutions of his coun- 
try. Accordingly, every shout that was raised 
by the members of the Kit Cat was echoed by 
the High Churchmen of the October ; and the 

20 curtain at length fell amidst thunders of 
unanimous applause. 

The delight and admiration of the town were 
described by the " Guardian " in terms which 
we might attribute to partiality, were it not 

25 that the " Examiner," the organ of the minis- 

4. Jonathan's and Garraway's. Merchants' clubs. 

19. October, A Tory club where the members' favorite drink was 
October ale. ' 



ADDISON. 125 

try, held similar language. The Tories, indeed, 
found much to sneer at in the conduct of their 
opponents. Steele had on this, as on other 
occasions, shown more zeal than taste or 
judgment. The honest citizens who marched 5 
under the orders of Sir Gibby, as he was 
facetiously called, probably knew better when 
to buy and when to sell stock than when to 
clap and when to hiss at a play, and incurred 
some ridicule by making the hypocritical 10 
Sempronius their favorite, and by giving to 
his insincere rants louder plaudits than they 
bestowed on the temperate eloquence of 
Cato. Wharton, too, who had the incredible 
effrontery to applaud the lines about flying is 
from prosperous vice and from the power 
of impious- men to a private station, did not 
escape the sarcasms of those who justly 
thought that he could fly from nothing more 
vicious or impious than himself. The epi-20 
logue, which was written by Garth, a zealous 
Whig, was severely and not unreasonably 
censured as ignoble and out of place. But 
Addison was described, even by the bitterest 
Tory writers, as a gentleman of wit and virtue, 25 

6. Sir Gibby. Sir Gilbert Heathcote, a wealthy merchant. 

21. Sir Samuel Garth. Court physician of George I. He wrote a 
poem called the " Dispensary." 



126 ADDISON. 

in whose friendship many persons of both 
parties were happy, and whose name ought not 
to be mixed up with factious squabbles. 

Of the jests by which the triumph of the 

6 Whig party was disturbed, the most severe 
and happy was Bolingbroke's. Between two 
acts he sent for Booth to his box, and pre- 
sented him, before the whole theatre, with a 
purse of fifty guineas f©r defending the cause 

10 of liberty so well against a perpetual dictator. 
This was a pungent allusion to the attempt 
which Marlborough had made, not long before 
his fall, to obtain, a patent creating him captain 
general for life. 

15 It was April, and in April a hundred and 
thirty years ago the London season was 
thought to be far advanced. During a whole 
month, however, " Cato " was performed to 
overflowing houses, and brought into the 

20 treasury of the theatre twice the gains of an 
ordinary spring. In the summer the Drury 
Lane company went down to act at Oxford, 
and there, before an audience which retained 
an affectionate remembrance of Addison's 

25 accomplishments and \'irtues, his tragedy was 
acted during several days. The gownsmen 

26. Gownsmen. The students, all of whom wear gowns in the Eng- 
lish colleges- 



ADDISON. 127 

began to besiege the theatre in the fore- 
noon, and by one in the afternoon all the seats 
were filled. 

About the merits of the piece which had so 
extraordinary an effect, the public, we sup-s 
pose, has made up its mind. To compare it 
with the masterpieces of the Attic stage, with 
the great English dramas of the time of Eliz- 
abeth, or even with the productions of Schiller's 
manhood, would be absurd indeed. Yet it 10 
contains excellent dialogue and declamation, 
and, among plays fashioned on the French 
model, must be allowed to rank high ; not, 
indeed, with ** Athalie " or "Saul," but, we 
think, not below " Cinna," and certainly above 15 
any other English tragedy of the same school, 
above many of the plays of Corneille, above 
many of the plays of Voltaire and Alfieri, and 
above some plays of Racine. Be this as it 
may, we have little doubt that '' Cato " did as 2c 
much as the '' Tatlers," "Spectators," and 
" Freeholders " united to raise Addison's fame 
among his contemporaries. 

The modesty and good nature of the suc- 

7. Attic stage. That is, the Greek dramas. 

9. Schiller, 1759-1805.") A great German dramatist. He shares 
with GcEthe the distinction of being the greatest poet of his country. 

14. Saul. A drama by Alfieri. 

15. Cinna. A drama by Corneille, (1606-1684.) 



128 ADDISON. 

cessful dramatist had tamed even the maHgnity 
of faction. But Hterary envy, it should seem, 
is a fiercer passion than party spirit. It was 
by a zealous Whig that the fiercest attack on 

5 the Whig tragedy was made. John Dennis 
published " Remarks on Cato," which were 
written with some acuteness and with much 
coarseness and asperity. Addison neither 
defended himself nor retaliated. On many 

10 points he had an excellent defense, and 
nothing would have been easier than to retal- 
iate, for Dennis had written bad odes, bad 
tragedies, bad comedies ; he had, moreover, a 
larger share than most men of those infirmities 

15 and eccentricities which excite laughter; and 
Addison's power of turning either an absurd 
book or an absurd man into ridicule was 
unrivaled. Addison, however, serenely con- 
scious of his superiority, looked with pity on 

20 his assailant, whose temper, naturally irritable 
and gloomy, had been soured by want, by 
controversy, and by literary failures. 

But among the young candidates for Addi- 
son's favor there was one distinguished by 

26 talents from the rest, and distinguished, we 
fear, not less by malignity and insincerity. 

5. John Dennis, (1670-1734.) A dramatic critic. He was constantly 
in controversy with the writers of his day. 



ADDISON. 129 

Pope was only twenty-five. But his powers 
had expanded to their full maturity; and his 
best poem, the " Rape of the Lock," had 
recently been published. Of his genius, Addi- 
son had always expressed high admiration ; 5 
but Addison had early discerned, what might, 
indeed, have been discerned by an eye less 
penetrating than his, that the diminutive, 
crooked, sickly boy was eager to revenge him- 
self on society for the unkindness of nature. 10 
In the " Spectator," the ** Essay on Criticism " 
had been praised with' cordial warmth; but a 
gentle hint had been added, that the writer of 
so excellent a poem would have done well to 
avoid ill-natured personalities. Pope, though 15 
e\idently more galled by the censure than 
gratified by the praise, returned thanks for 
the admonition, and promised to profit by it. 
The two writers continued to exchange civil- 
ities, counsel, and small good offices. Addi-20 
son publicly extolled Pope's miscellaneous 
pieces ; and Pope furnished Addison with a 
prologue. This did not last long. Pope 
hated Dennis, whom he had injured without 
provocation. The appearance of the *' Re-25 
marks on Cato " gave the irritable poet an 
opportunity of venting his malice under the 



I30 ADDISON. 

show of friendship ; and such an opportunity 
could not but be welcome to a nature which 
was implacable in enmity, and which always 
preferred the tortuous to the straight path. 

5 He published, accordingly, the '* Narrative of 
the Frenzy of John Dennis." But Pope had 
mistaken his powers. He was a great master 
of invective and sarcasm ; he could dissect a 
character in terse and sonorous couplets, 

10 brilliant with antithesis; but of dramatic talent 
he was altogether destitute. If he had written 
a lampoon on Dennis, such as that on Atticus 
or that on Sporus, the old grumbler would 
have been crushed. But Pope writing dialogue 

15 resembled — to borrow Horace's imagery and 
his own — a wolf, which, instead of biting, 
should take to kicking, or a monkey which 
should try to sting. The Narrative is utterly 
contemptible. Of argument there is not even 

20 a show; and the jests are such as, if they were 
introduced into a farce, would call forth the 
hisses of the shilling gallery. Dennis raves 
about the drama ; and the nurse thinks he is 
calling for a dram. " There is," he cries, '* no 

25 peripetia in the tragedy, no change of fortune, 

12. Atticus is the name under which Pope attacked Addison in the 
" Epistle to Arbuthnot." Sporus was that under which he attacked Lord 
Hervey. 
25. Peripetia, That part of the drama in which the plot is disclose^l. 



ADDISON. 131 

no change at all." " Pray, good sir, be not 
angry," says the old woman; ** I'll fetch 
change." This is not exactly the pleasantry 
of Addison. 

There can be no doubt that Addison saws 
through this of^cious zeal and felt himself 
deeply aggrieved by it. So foolish and spite- 
ful a pamphlet could do him no good, and, if 
he were thought to have any hand in it, must 
do him harm. Gifted with incomparable 10 
powers of ridicule, he had never, even in self- 
defense, used those powers inhumanly or 
uncourteously ; and he was not disposed to let 
others make his fame and his interests a 
pretext under which they might commit out- is 
rages from which he had himself constantly 
abstained. He accordingly declared that he 
had no concern in the Narrative, that he dis- 
approved of it, and that if he answered the 
remarks, he would answer them like a gentle- 20 
man ; and he took care to communicate this 
to Dennis. Pope was bitterly mortified ; and 
to this transaction we are inclined to ascribe 
the hatred with which he ever after regarded 
Addison. 25 

In September, 171 3, the " Guardian " 
ceased to appear. Steele had gone mad 



132 ADDISON. 

about politics. A general election had just 
taken place. He had been chosen member 
for Stockbridge, and he fully expected to play 
a first part in Parliament. The immense 

5 success of the " Tatler " and " Spectator" had 
turned his head. He had been the editor of 
both those papers, and was not aware how 
entirely they owed their influence and popu- 
larity to the genius of his friend. His spirits, 

10 always violent, were now excited by vanity, 
ambition, and faction, to such a pitch that he 
every day committed some offence against 
good sense and good taste. All the discreet 
and moderate members of his own party re- 

isgretted and condemned his folly. " I am in a 
thousand troubles," Addison wrote, " about 
poor Dick, and wish that his zeal for the 
public may not be ruinous to himself. But he 
has sent me word that he is determined to go 

20 on, and that any advice I may give him in 

that particular will have no weight with him." 

Steele set up a political paper called the 

** Englishman," which, as it was not supported 

by contributions from Addison, completely 

25 failed. By this work, by some other writings 
of the same kind, and by the airs which he 
gave himself at the first meeting of the new 



ADDISON. 133 

Parliament, he made the Tories so angry that 
they determined to expel him. The Whigs 
stood by him gallantly, but were unable to 
save him. The vote of expulsion was regarded 
by all dispassionate men as a tyrannical exer-5 
cise of the power of the majority. But Steele's 
violence and folly, though they by no means 
justified the steps which his enemies took, had 
completely disgusted his friends ; nor did he 
^ver again regain the place which he had held 10 
in the public estimation. 

Addison about this time conceived the 
design of adding an eighth volume to the 
"Spectator." In June, 1714, the first num- 
ber of the new series appeared, and during 15 
about six months three papers were published 
weekly. Nothing can be more striking than 
the contrast between the " Englishman " and 
the eighth volume of the *' Spectator," between 
Steele without Addison and Addison without 20 
Steele. The ''Englishman" is forgotten: the 
eighth volame of the " Spectator " contains, 
perhaps, the finest essays, both serious and 
playful, in the English language. 

Before this volume was completed, the death 25 
of Anne produced an entire change in the 
administration of pubHc affairs. The blow fell 



134 ADDISON. 

suddenly. It found the Tory party distracted 
by internal feuds, and unprepared for any 
great effort. Harley had just been disgraced. 
Bolingbroke, it was supposed, would be the 

5 chief minister. But the Queen was on her 
deathbed before the white staff had been 
given ; and her last public act was to deliver 
it with a feeble hand to the Duke of Shrews- 
bury. The emergency produced a coalition 

10 between all sections of public men who were 
attached to the Protestant succession. George 
I. was proclaimed without opposition. A 
council, in which the leading Whigs had seats, 
took the direction of affairs till the new King 

15 should arrive. The first act of the lords 
justices was to appoint Addi.son their 
secretary. 

There is an idle tradition that he was 
directed to prepare a letter to the King, that 

20 he could not satisfy himself as to the style of 
this composition, and that the lords justices 
called in a clerk, who at once did what was 
wanted. It is not strange that a story so flat- 
tering to mediocrity should be popular, and 

25 we are sorry to deprive dunces of their conso- 
lation. But the truth must be told. It was 

II. Protestant succession. The securing ot the English throne to 
the House of Hanover. 



ADDISON. 135 

well observed by Sir James Mackintosh, whose 
knowledge of these times was unequaled, that 
Addison never, in any official document, 
affected wit or eloquence, and that his dis- 
patches are, without exception, remarkable 5 
for unpretending simplicity. Everybody who 
knows with what ease Addison's finest essays 
were produced must be convinced, that, if 
well-turned phrases had been wanted, he 
would have had no difficulty in finding them. 10 
We are, however, inclined to believe that the 
story is not absolutely without a foundation. 
It may well be that Addison did not know, till 
he had consulted experienced clerks who re- 
membered the time when Willliam III. was 15 
absent on the Continent, in what form a letter 
from the Council of Regency to the King 
ought to be drawn. We think it very likely 
that the ablest statesmen of our time — Lord 
John Russell, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Palmer- 20 
ston, for example — would, in similar circum- 
stances, be found quite as ignorant. Every 
office has some little mysteries which the 

I. Sir James Mackintosh, (1765-1832.) A distinguished philosopher 
and historian. 

20. Lord John Russell, (1792-1878.) A prime minister and author of 
the Reform Bill of 1834. 

20. Sir Robert Peel, ( 1 788-1850 ) One of the greatest statesmen of the 
present century. Noted for his repeal of the Common Laws. 

20. Lord Palmerston, (1784-1865.) A distinguished pi ime minister. 



136 ADDISON. 

dullest man may learn with a little attention, 
and which the greatest man cannot possibly 
know by intuition. One paper must be signed 
by the chief of the department ; another by his 

5 deputy; to a third the royal sign manual is 
necessary. One communication is to be regis 
tered, and another is not. One sentence must 
be in black ink, and another in red ink. If 
the ablest secretary for Ireland were moved to 

10 the India Board, if the ablest president of the 
India Board were moved to the War Office, he 
would require instruction on points like these ; 
and we do not doubt that Addison required 
such instruction when he became, for the first 

15 time, secretary to the lords justices. 

George I. took possession of his kingdom 
without opposition. A new ministry was 
formed, and a new Parliament favorable to the 
Whigs chosen. Sunderland was appointed 

20 lord lieutenant of Ireland, and Addison again 
went to Dublin as chief secretary. 

At Dublin Swift resided ; and there was 
much speculation about the way in which the 
Dean and the Secretary would behave towards 

26 each other. The relations which existed be- 
tween these remarkable men form an interest- 
ing and pleasing portion of literary history. 



ADDISON. 137 

They had early attached themselves to the 
same political party and to the same patrons. 
While Anne's Whig ministry was in power, the 
visits of Swift to London, and the official resi- 
dence of Addison in Ireland, had given them 5 
opportunities of knowing each other. They 
were the two shrewdest observers of their age ; 
but their observations on each other had led 
them to favorable conclusions. Swift did full 
justice to the rare powers of conversation 10 
which were latent under the bashful deport- 
ment of Addison. Addison, on the other 
hand, discerned much good nature under the 
severe look and manner of Swift; and, indeed, 
the Swift of 1708 and the Swift of 1738 were is 
two very different men. 

But the paths of the two friends diverged 
widely. The Whig statesmen loaded Addison 
with solid benefits. They praised Swift, asked 
him to dinner, and did nothing more for him. 20 
His profession laid them under a dif^culty. 
In the State they could not promote him ; and 
they had reason to fear, that, by bestowing 
preferment in the Church on the author of the 
** Tale of a Tub," they might give scandal to 25 
the public, which had no high opinion of their 

25. Tale of a Tub. A keen satire on the abuses in the church. 



138 ADDISON. 

orthodoxy. He did not make fair allowance 
for the dif^culties which prevented Halifax 
and Somers from serving him, thought himself 
an ill-used man, sacrificed honor and consis- 

stency to revenge, joined the Tories, and be- 
came their most formidable champion. He 
soon found, however, that his old friends were 
less to blame than he had supposed. The 
dislike with which the Queen and the heads of 

10 the Church regarded him was insurmountable ; 
and it was with the greatest difficulty that he 
obtained an ecclesiastical dignity of no great 
value, on condition of fixing his residence in a 
country which he detested. 

15 Difference of political opinion had produced, 
not, indeed, a quarrel, but a coolness between 
Swift and Addison. They at length ceased 
altogether to see each other. Yet there was 
between them a tacit compact like that between 

20 the hereditary guests in the ** Iliad " : — 

''Eyx^'^ ^' ciXat/acjv aXeujieda koI 61* o/xiTiov 
HolTiol jiEV yap e/noi TpcJcf kXeitoi r' eTcimvpoi, 
KteIveiv, bv KE -^Eog yE TTopy Koi rcocol klxeiu)^ 
lioTCkol J' av col ^Axo-Lol^ tvalpEjUEv, bv ke dvvT/ai. 

Iliad, Lib, VI, 226-229. 
21. Bryant's translation : — 

" And let us in the tumult of the fray, 

Avoid each other's spears, for there will be 
Of Trojans and of their renewed allies 
Enough for me to slay, whene'er a god 
Shall bring them in my way. In turn for thee 
Are many Greeks to smite, whomever thou 
Canst overcome." 



ADDISON. 139 

It is not strange that Addison, who calum- 
niated and insulted nobody, should not have 
calumniated or insulted Swift; but it is re- 
markable that Swift, to whom neither genius 
nor virtue was sacred, and who generally 5 
seemed to find, like most other renegades, a 
peculiar pleasure in attacking old friends, 
should have shown so much respect and ten- 
derness to Addison. 

Fortune had now changed. The accession lo 
of the House of Hanover had secured in 
England the liberties of the people, and in 
Ireland the dominion of the Protestant caste. 
To that caste Swift was more odious than 
any other man. He was hooted and even 15 
pelted in the streets of Dublin, and could not 
venture to ride along the strand for his health 
without the attendance of armed servants. 
Many whom he had formerly served now 
libeled and insulted him. At this time Addi-20 
son arrived. He had been advised not to 
show the smallest civility to the Dean of 
St. Patrick's. He had answered, with admira- 
ble spirit, that it might be necessary for men 
whose fidelity to their party was suspected, to 25 
hold no intercourse with political opponents ; 

15. Because he was suspected of being implicated in a plot to restore 
the Stuarts. 



140 ADDISON. 

but that one who had been a steady Whig in 
the worst times might venture, when the good 
cause was triumphant, to shake hands with an 
old friend who was one of the vanquished 

6 Tories. His kindness was soothing to the 
proud and cruelly wounded spirit of Swift ; 
and the two great satirists resumed their 
habits of friendly intercourse. 

Those associates of Addison whose political 

10 opinions agreed with his shared his good for- 
tune. He took Tickell with him to Ireland. 
He procured for Budgell a lucrative place in 
the same kingdom. Ambrose Philips was 
provided for in England. Steele had injured 

15 himself so much by his eccentricity and per- 
verseness that he obtained but a very small 
part of what he thought his due. He was, 
however, knighted ; he had a place in the 
household ; and he subsequently received 

soother marks of favor from the court. 

Addison did not remain long in Ireland. 
In 1 71 5 he quitted his secretaryship for a seat 
at the Board of Trade. In the same year his 
comedy of the *' Drummer " was brought on 

25 the stage. The name of the author was not 
announced. The piece was coldly received ; 

23. Board of Trade. The branch of the government thdt deals with 
commerce and statistics. 



ADDISON. 141 

and some critics have expressed a doubt 
whether it were really Addison's. To us the 
evidence, both external and internal, seems 
decisive. It is not in Addison's best manner; 
but it contains numerous passages which no 5 
other writer known to us could have produced. 
It was again performed after Addison's death, 
and, being known to be his, was loudly 
applauded. 

Towards the close of the year 1 71 5, while 10 
the Rebellion was still raging in Scotland, 
Addison published the first number of a paper 
called the " Freeholder." Among his political 
works the " Freeholder " is entitled to the first 
place. Even in the ''Spectator" there are 15 
few serious papers nobler than the character 
of his friend. Lord Somers, and certainly no 
satirical papers superior to those in which the 
Tory fox hunter is introduced. This character 
is the original of Squire Western, and is drawn 20 
with all Fielding's force and with a delicacy 
of which Fielding was altogether destitute. 
As none of Addison's works exhibits stronger 
marks of his genius than the ** Freeholder," 
so none does more honor to his moral charac-25 

II. Rebellion of 1715. A rising of the Jacobites, whose object was tq 
restore the Stuarts. 

20. Squire Western. A character in Fielding's " Tom Jones." 



142 ADDISON. 

ter. It is difficult to extol too highly the 
candor and humanity of a political writer 
whom even the excitement of civil war cannot 
hurry into unseemly violence. Oxford, it is 

swell known, was then the stronghold of Tory- 
ism. The High Street had been repeatedly 
lined with bayonets in order to keep down the 
disaffected gownsmen ; and traitors pursued 
by the messengers of the government had 

10 been concealed in the garrets of several col- 
leges. Yet the admonition which, even under 
such circumstances, Addison addressed to the 
university, is singularly gentle, respectful, and 
even affectionate: indeed, he could not find it 

15 in his heart to deal harshly even with imagin- 
ary persons. His fox hunter, though ignorant, 
stupid, and violent, is at heart a good fellow, 
and is at last reclaimed by the clemency of the 
King. Steele was dissatisfied with his friend's 

20 moderation, and, though he acknowledged that 
the '* Freeholder " was excellently written, 
complained that the ministry played on a lute 
when it was necessary to blow the trumpet. 
He accordingly determined to execute a flour- 

25ish after his own fashion, and tried to rouse 
the public spirit of the nation by means of a 
paper called the "Town Talk," which is now 



ADDISON. 143 

as utterly forgotten as his '' Englishman," as 
his '* Crisis," as his *' Letter to the Bailiff of 
Stockbridge," as his " Reader " : in short, as 
everything that he wrote without the help 
of Addison. 5 

In the same year in which the " Drummer " 
was acted, and in which the first numbers of 
the " Freeholder " appeared, the estrangement 
of Pope and Addison became complete. 
Addison had from the first seen that Pope 10 
was false and malevolent. Pope had dis- 
covered that Addison was jealous. The 
discovery was made in a strange manner. 
Pope had written the " Rape of the Lock," 
in two cantos, without supernatural machinery. 15 
These two cantos had been loudly applauded, 
and by none more loudly than by Addison. 
Then Pope thought of the sylphs and gnomes. 
Ariel, Momentilla, Crispissa, and Umbriel, 
and resolved to interweave the Rosicrucian20 
mythology with the original fabric. He asked 
Addison's advice. Addison said that the 
poem as it stood was a delicious little thing, 
and entreated Pope not to run the risk of 
marring what was so excellent in trying to 25 

20 Rosicrucian. A German sect supposed to have been founded in 
the fourteenth century. They pretended to effect strange and magical 
deeds and to have strange spirits at their command. 



144 ADDISON. 

mend it. Pope afterwards declared that this 
insidious council first opened his eyes to the 
baseness of him who gave it. 

Now there can be no doubt that Pope's 

5 plan was most ingenious, and that he afterwards 
executed it with great skill and success ; but 
does it necessarily follow that Addison's 
advice was bad? And, if Addison's advice 
was bad, does it necessarily follow that it was 

10 given from bad motives? If a friend were to 
ask us whether we would advise him to risk 
his all in a lottery of which the chances were 
ten to one against him, we should do our best 
to dissuade him from running such a risk. 

15 Even if he were so lucky as to get the thirty 
thousand pound prize, we should not admit 
that we had counseled him ill, and we should 
certainly think it the height of injustice in him 
to accuse us of having been actuated by malice. 

20 We think Addison's advice good advice. It 
rested on a sound principle, the result of long 
and wide experience. The general rule un- 
doubtedly is, that, when a successful work of 
imagination has been produced, it should not 

25 be recast. We cannot at this moment call to 
mind a single instance in which this rule has 
been transgressed with happy effect, except 



ADDISON. 145 

the instance of the " Rape of the Lock." 
Tasso recast his ** Jerusalem." Akenside re- 
cast his " Pleasures of the Imagination," and his 
" Epistle to Curio." Pope himself, embold- 
ened, no doubt, by the success with which he 5 
had expanded and remodeled the " Rape of 
the Lock," made the same experiment on the 
** Duniciad." All these attempts failed. Who 
was to foresee that Pope would, once in his 
life, be able to do what he could not himself do 10 
twice, and what nobody else has ever done? 

Addison's advice was good; but, had it 
been bad, why should we pronounce it dis- 
honest? Scott tells us that one of his best 
friends predicted the failure of *' Waverly."i5 
Herder adjured Goethe not to take so un- 
promising a subject as Faust. Hume tried to 
dissuade Robertson from writing the " History 
of Charles the Fifth." Nay, Pope himself was 
one of those who prophesied that *'Cato"2o 
would never succeed on the stage, and advised 
Addison to print it without risking a repre- 

2. Mark Akenside, (1721-1770.) A physician who won much success 
as a poet. 

8 Dunciad. A satire which attacked a large number of the writers 
of that day. 

16. Herder, '1744-1803.) A philosopher who did much to establish 
modern German literature. 

17. David Hume, (1711-1776.) A great English historian and philoso- 
pher. 



146 ADDISON. 

sentation. But Scott, Goethe, Robertson, 
Addison had the good sense and generosity 
to give their advisers credit for the best inten- 
tions. Pope's heart was not of the same kind 

5 with theirs. 

In 171 5, while he was engaged in translating 
the ** Iliad," he met Addison at a coffee-house. 
Philips and Budgell were there ; but their 
sovereign got rid of them, and asked Pope 

10 to dine with him alone. After dinner, 
Addison said that he lay under a difficulty 
which he wished to explain. '* Tickell," he 
said, *' translated some time ago the first book 
of the ' Iliad.' I have promised to look it 

15 over and correct it. I cannot therefore ask to 
see yours ; for that would be double dealing." 
Pope made a civil reply, and begged that his 
second book might have Addison's revision. 
Addison readily agreed, looked over the 

20 second book, and sent it back with warm 
commendations. 

Tickell's version of the first book appeared 
soon after this conversation. In the preface 
all rivalry was earnestly disclaimed. Tickell 

25 declared that he should not go on with the 
" Iliad." That enterprise he should leave to 
powers which he admitted to be superior to 



ADDISON. 147 

his own. His only view, he said, in pubHshing 
this specimen was to bespeak the favor of the 
pubHc to a translation of the " Odyssey," in 
which he had made some progress. 

Addison and Addison's devoted followers 5 
pronounced both the versions good, but main- 
tained that Tickell's had more of the original. 
The town gave a decided preference to Pope's. 
We do not think it worth while to settle such 
a question of precedence. Neither of the 10 
rivals can be said to have translated the 
** Iliad," unless, indeed, the word " translation " 
be used in the sense which it bears in the 
" Midsummer Night's Dream." When Bottom 
makes his appearance with an ass's head instead 15 
of his own, Peter Quince exclaims, "Bless 
thee, Bottom ! bless thee ! thou art translated." 
In this sense, undoubtedly, the readers of 
either Pope or Tickell may very properly 
exclaim, "Bless thee, Homer! thou art 20 
translated indeed." 

Our readers will, we hope, agree with us in 
thinking that no man in Addison's situation 
could have acted more fairly and kindly, both 
towards Pope and towards Tickell, than he 25 
appears to have done. But an odious sus- 

14. Midsummer Night's Dream. Act III., Scene i, line 121. 



148 ADDISON. 

picion had sprung up in the mind of Pope. 
He fancied, and he soon firmly beheved, that 
there was a deep conspiracy against his fame 
and his fortunes. The work on which he had 
5 staked his reputation was to be depreciated. 
The subscription, on which rested his hopes of 
a competence, was to be defeated. With this 
view, Addison had made a rival translation ; 
Tickell had consented to father it; and the 

10 wits of Button's had united to puff it. 

Is there any external evidence to support 
this grave accusation? The answer is short. 
There is absolutely none. 

Was there any internal evidence which 

15 proved Addison to be the author of this ver- 
sion? Was it a work which Tickell was 
incapable of producing? Surely not. Tickell 
was a fellow of a college at Oxford, and must 
be supposed to have been able to construe the 

20" Iliad;" and he was a better versifier than 
his friend. We are not aware that Pope 
pretended to have discovered any turns of 
expression peculiar to Addison. Had such 
terms of expression been discovered, they 

25 would be suf^ciently accounted for by sup- 
posing Addison to have corrected his friend's 
lines, as he owned that he had done. 



ADDISON. 149 

Is there anything in the character of the 
accused persons which makes the accusation 
probable? We answer confidently, Nothing. 
Tickell was long after this time described by 
Pope himself as a very fair and worthy man. 5 
Addison had been, during many years, before 
the public. Literary rivals, political oppo- 
nents, had kept their eyes on him. But 
neither envy nor faction, in their utmost rage, 
had ever imputed to him a single deviation 10 
from the laws of honor and of social morality. 
Had he been, indeed, a man meanly jealous of 
fame, and capable of stooping to base and 
wicked arts for the purpose of injuring his 
competitors, would his vices have remained 15 
latent so long? He was a writer of tragedy: 
had he ever injured Rowe? He was a writer 
of comedy: had he not done ample justice to 
Congreve, and given valuable help to Steele? 
He was a pamphleteer: have not his good 20 
nature and generosity been acknowledged by 
Swift, his rival in fame, and his adversary in 
politics? 

That Tickell should have been guilty of a 
villainy seems to us highly improbable. That 25 
Addison should have been guilty of a villainy 
seems to us highly improbable. But that 



ISO ADDISON. 

these two men should have conspired together 
to commit a villainy seems to us improbable 
in a tenfold degree. All that is known to us 
of their intercourse tends to prove that it was 
snot the intercourse of two accomplices in 
crime. These are some of the lines in which 
Tickell poured forth his sorrow over the cofifin 
of Addison : — 

" Or dost thou warn poor mortals left behind, 

10 A task well suited to thy gentle mind? 

Oh, if sometimes thy spotless form descend, 
To me thine aid, thou guardian genius, lend. 
When rage misguides me, or when fear alarms, 
When pain distresses, or when pleasure charms, 

15 In silent whisperings purer thoughts impart, 

And turn from ill a frail and feeble heart; 
Lead through the paths thy virtue trod before. 
Till bliss shall join, nor death can part us more." 

In W'hat words, we should like to know, did 

20 this guardian genius invite his pupil to join in 

a plan such as the editor of the "Satirist" 

would hardly dare to propose to the editor of 

the **Age" ? 

We do not accuse Pope of bringing an accu- 
25 sation which he knew to be false. We have not 
the smallest doubt that he believed it to be 
true ; and the evidence on which he believed 
it he found in his own bad heart. His own 
life was one long series of tricks, as 
30 mean and as malicious as that of which he 



ADDISON. 151 

suspected Addison and Tickell. He was all 
stiletto and mask. To injure, to insult, and to 
save himself from the consequences of injury 
and insult by lying and equivocating, was the 
habit of his life. He published a lampoon on 5 
the Duke of Chandos : he was taxed with it, 
and he lied and equivocated. He published a 
lampoon on Aaron Hill : he was taxed with it, 
and he lied and equivocated. He published a 
still fouler lampoon on Lady Mary Wortleyio 
Montagu : he was taxed with it, and he lied 
with more than usual effrontery and ve- 
hemence. He puffed himself and abused his 
enemies under feigned names. He robbed 
himself of his own letters, and then raised the 15 
hue and cry after them. Besides his frauds of 
malignity, of fear, of interest and of vanity, 
there were frauds which he seemed to have 
committed from love of fraud alone. He had 
a habit of strategem, a pleasure in outwitting 20 
all who came near him. Whatever his object 
might be, the indirect road to it was that 
which he preferred. For Bolingbroke, Pope 
undoubtedly felt as much love and veneration 
as it was in his nature to feel for any human 25 
being; yet Pope was scarcely dead when it 

8. Aaron Hill. A dramatic writer of some merit. 

II. Lady Wortley Montagu. " Dunciad," Book II , i, 135. 



152 ADDISON. / 

was discovered, that, from no motive except 
the mere love of artifice, he had been guilty of 
an act of gross perfidy to Bolingbroke. 

Nothing was more natural than that such a 

5 man as this should attribute to others that 
which he felt within himself. A plain, prob- 
able, coherent explanation is frankly given to 
him ; he is certain that it is all a romance. A 
line of conduct scrupulously fair, and even 

10 friendly, is pursued towards him: he is con- 
vinced that it is merely a cover for a vile 
intrigue by which he is to be disgraced and 
ruined. It is vain to ask him for proofs. He 
has none, and wants none, except those which 

15 he carries in his own bosom. 

Whether Pope's malignity at length pro- 
voked Addison to retaliate for the first and 
last time, cannot now be known with certainty. 
We have only Pope's story, which runs 

20 thus: a pamphlet appeared containing some 
reflections which stung Pope to the quick. 
What those reflections were, and whether they 
were reflections of which he had a right 
to complain, we have now no means of decid- 

25ing. The Earl of Warwick, a foolish and 
vicious lad, who regarded Addison with the 

3. Perfidy. He was accused of committing a breech of trust in pub- 
lishing certain letters of Bolingbroke. 



ADDISON. 153 

feelings with which such lads generally regard 
their best friends, told Pope, truly or falsely, 
that this pamphlet had been written by Addi- 
son's direction. When we consider what a 
tendency stories have to grow in passing even 5 
from one honest man to another honest man, 
and when we consider that to the name of 
honest men neither Pope nor the Earl of War- 
wick had a claim, we are not disposed to 
attach much importance to this anecdote. 10 

It is certain, however, that Pope was furious. 
He had already sketched the character of Atti- 
cus in prose. In his anger he turned this 
prose into the brilliant and energetic lines 
which everybody knows by heart, or ought to 15 
know by heart, and sent them to Addison. 
One charge which Pope has enforced with 
great skill is probably not without foundation. 
Addison was, we are inclined to believe, too 
fond of presiding over a circle of humble 20 
friends. Of the other imputations which these 
famous lines are intended to convey, scarcely 
one has ever been proved to be just, and some 
are certainly false. That Addison was not in 
the habit of *' damning with faint praise " 26 
appears from innumerable passages in his 
writings, and from none more than from those 



154 ADDISON. 

in which he mentions Pope. And it is not 
merely unjust, but ridiculous, to describe a 
man who made the fortune of almost every 
one of his intimate friends, as *' so obliging 

6 that he ne'er obliged." 

That Addison felt the sting of Pope's satire 
keenly we cannot doubt ; that he was con- 
scious of one of the weaknesses with which he 
was reproached, is highly probable: but his 

10 heart, we firmly believe, acquitted him of the 
gravest part of the accusation. He acted like 
himself. As a satirist, he was at his own 
weapons more than Pope's match, and he 
would have been at no loss for topics. A dis- 

istorted and diseased body, tenanted by a yet 
more distorted and diseased mind ; spite and 
envy thinly disguised by sentiments as benevo- 
lent and noble as those which Sir Peter Teazle 
admired in Mr. Joseph Surface; a feeble, 

20 sickly licentiousness ; an odious love of filthy 
and noisome images, — these were things which 
a genius less powerful than that to which we 
owe the "Spectator" could easily have held 
up to the mirth and hatred of mankind. 

25 Addison had, moreover, at his command 
other means of vengeance, which a bad man 

19. Sir Peter Teazle and Joseph Surface are both characters in the 
" School for Scandal," a famous comedy by Sheridan. 



ADDISON. 155 

would not have scrupled to use. He was 
powerful in the State. Pope was a Catholic ; 
and in those times a minister would have 
found it easy to harass the most innocent 
Catholic by innumerable petty vexations, s 
Pope, nearly twenty years later, said that 
"through the lenity of the government alone 
he could live with comfort." Consider," he 
exclaimed, '* the injury that a man of high 
rank and credit may do to a private person, 10 
under penal laws and many other disadvan- 
tages." It is pleasing to reflect that the only 
revenge which Addison took was to insert in 
the " Freeholder " a warm enconium on the 
translation of the " Iliad," and to exhort all 15 
lovers of learning to put down their names as 
subscribers. There could be no doubt, he 
said, from the specimens already published, 
that the masterly hand of Pope would do as 
much for Homer as Dryden had done for 20 
Virgil. From that time to the end of his life 
he always treated Pope, by Pope's own ac- 
knowledgment, with justice. Friendship was, 
of course, at an end. 

One reason which induced the Earl of 25 
Warwick to play the ignominious part of tale- 
bearer on this occasion may have been his 



156 ADDISON. 

dislike of the marriage which was about to 
take place between his mother and Addison. 
The countess dowager, a daughter of the old 
and honorable family of the Middletons of 
5 Chirk, a family which, in any country but 
ours, would be called noble, resided at Hol- 
land House. Addison had, during some 
years, occupied at Chelsea a small dwelling, 
once the abode of Nell Gwynn. Chelsea is 

10 now a district of London, and Holland House 
may be called a town residence ; but, in the 
da}'s of Anne and George I., milkmaids and 
sportsmen wandered between green hedges, 
and over fields bright with daisies, from 

18 Kensington almost to the shore of the Thames. 
Addison and Lady Warwick were country 
neighbors, and became intimate friends. The 
great wit and scholar tried to allure the young 
lord from the fashionable amusements of 

30 beating watchmen, breaking windows, and 
rolling women in hogsheads down Holborn 
Hill, to the study of letters and the practice of 
virtue. These well-meant exertions did little 
good, however, either to the disciple or to the 

7. Holland House A beautiful mansion near London, built in the 
time of Elizabeth. It was long celebrated as the resort of the mosi bril- 
liant and witty society of the time. 

9. Nell Gwynn. A notorious actress and favorite of Charles II. 



ADDISON. 157 

master. Lord Warwick grew up a rake, and 
Addison fell in love. The mature beauty of 
the countess has been celebrated by poets in 
language which, after a very large allowance 
has been made for flattery, would lead us tos 
believe that she was a fine woman ; and her 
rank doubtless heightened her attractions. 
The courtship was long. The hopes of the 
lover appear to have risen and fallen with the 
fortunes of his party. His attachment was at 10 
length matter of such notoriety, that, when he 
visited Ireland for the last time, Rowe 
addressed some consolatory verses to the Chloe 
of Holland House. It strikes us as a little 
strange that in these verses Addison should 15 
be called Lycidas, a name of singularly evil 
omen for a swain just about to cross St. 
George's Channel. 

At length Chloe capitulated. Addison was 
indeed able to treat with her on equal terms. 20 
He had reason to expect preferment even 
higher than that which he had attained. He 
had inherited the fortune of a brother who died 
governor of Madras. He had purchased an 

13. Chloe. One of the favorite names for a shepherdess in classic 
pastorals. 

16 Lycidas. An unfortunate name because Milton in his famous 
elegy uses it for his friend, Edward King, who was drowned while crossing 
St. George's channel. 



158 ADDISOy. 

estate in Warwickshire, and had been wel- 
comed to his domain in very tolerable verse 
by one of the neighboring squires, the poetical 
fox hunter, William Somerville. In August, 

5 1 716, the newspapers announced that Joseph 
Addison, Esq., famous for many excellent 
works both in verse and prose, had espoused 
the Countess Dowager of Warwick. 

He now fixed his abode at Holland House, 

10 a house which can boast of a greater number 
of inmates distinguished in political and literary 
history than any other private dwelling in 
England. His portrait still hangs, there. The 
features are pleasing; the complexion is 

15 remarkably fair; but in the expression we 
trace rather the gentleness of his disposition 
than the force and keenness of his intellect. 

Not long after his marriage, he reached the 
height of civil greatness. The Whig govern- 

2oment had, during some time, been torn by 
internal dissensions. Lord Townshend led 
one section of the cabinet. Lord Sunderland 
the other. At length, in the spring of 1717, 
Sunderland triumphed. Townshend retired 

25 from ofhce, and was accompanied by Walpole 
and Cowper. Sunderland proceeded to recon- 

21. Lord Townshend Negotiator of the treaty which bound the 
Netherlands to support the Hanoverian succession. 



ADDISON. 159 

struct the ministry, and Addison was appointed 
secretary of state. It is certain that the seals 
were pressed upon him, and were at first 
decHned by him. Men equally versed in 
official business might easily have been found ; 5 
and his colleagues knew that they could not 
expect assistance from him in debate. He 
owed his elevation to his popularity, to his 
stainless probity, and to his literary fame. 

But scarcely had Addison entered the cabi- 10 
net when his health began to fail. From one 
serious attack he recovered in the autumn ; 
and his recovery was celebrated in Latin 
verses, worthy of his own pen, by Vincent 
Bourne, who was then at Trinity College, 15 
Cambridge. A relapse soon took place, and 
in the following spring Addison was prevented 
by a severe asthma from discharging the 
duties of his post. He resigned it, and was 
succeeded by his friend Craggs, a young man 20 
whose natural parts, though little improved by 
cultivation, were quick and showy, whose 
graceful person and winning manners had 
made him generally acceptable in society, and 
who, if he had lived, would probably have 25 
been the most formidable of all the rivals of 
Walpole. 



l6o ADDISON. 

As yet there was no Joseph Hume. The 
ministers, therefore, were able to bestow on 
Addison a retiring pension of fifteen hundred 
pounds a year. In what form this pension 

5 was given, we are not told by the biographers, 
and have not time to inquire; but it is certain 
that Addison did not vacate his seat in the 
House of Commons. 

Rest of mind and body seemed to have 

10 re-established his health, and he thanked God, 
with cheerful piety, for having set him free 
both from his office and from his asthma. 
Many years seemed to be before him ; and he 
meditated many works, — a tragedy on the 

15 death of Socrates, a translation of the Psalms, 
a treatise on the evidences of Christianity. 
Of this last performance, a part, which we 
could well spare, has come down to us. 

But the fatal complaint soon returned, and 

20 gradually prevailed against all the resources 
of medicine. It is melancholy to think that 
the last months of such a life should have 
been overclouded both by domestic and by 
political vexations. A tradition which began 

25 early, which has been generally received, and 

I. Joseph Hume. An economist, who introduced many reforms in 
Parliament. 

15. Socrates, (469-399 B.C.; A great Athenian philosopher, the 
teacher of Plato. 



ADDISON. l6l 

to which we have nothing to oppose, has 
represented his wife as an arrogant and 
imperious woman. It is said that, till his 
health failed him, he was glad to escape from 
the countess dowager and her magnificent 5 
dining room, blazing with the gilded devices 
of the house of Rich, to some tavern where he 
could enjoy a laugh, a talk about Virgil and 
Boileau, and a bottle of claret with the friends 
of his happier days. All those friends, how- 10 
ever, were not left to him. Sir Richard Steele 
had been gradually estranged by various 
causes. He considered himself as one who, 
in evil times, had braved martyrdom for his 
political principles, and demanded, when the 15 
Whig party was triumphant, a large compen- 
sation for what he had suffered when it was 
militant. The Whig leaders took a very 
different view of his claims. They thought 
that he had, by his own petulance and folly, 20 
brought them as well as himself into trouble, 
and though they did not absolutely neglect 
him, doled out favors to him with a sparing 
hand. It was natural that he should be angry 
with them, and especially angry with Addison. 25 
But what, above all, seems to have disturbed 

7. House of Rich. Another name for Holland House, whose founder 
was named Rich. 



1 62 ADDISON. 

Sir Richard was the elevation of Tickell, who 
at thirty was made by Addison undersecretary 
of state ; while the editor of the *' Tatler " and 
" Spectator," the author of the " Crisis," the 

5 member for Stockbridge, who had been perse- 
cuted for firm adherence to the House of 
Hanover, was, at near fifty, forced, after many 
solicitations and complaints, to content him- 
self with a share in the patent of Drury Lane 

10 Theater. Steele himself says, in his celebrated 
letter to Congreve, that Addison, by his 
preference of Tickell, " incurred the warmest 
resentment of other gentlemen;" and every- 
thing seems to indicate that, of those resentful 

15 gentlemen, Steele was himself one. 

While poor Sir Richard was brooding over 
what he considered as Addison's unkindness, 
a new cause of quarrel arose. The Whig 
party, already divided against itself, was rent 

20 by a new schism. The celebrated bill for 
limiting the number of peers had been brought 
in. The proud Duke of Somerset, first in 
rank of all the nobles whose religion permitted 
them to sit in Parliament, was the ostensible 

25 author of the measure; but it was supported, 
and in truth devised, by the prime minister. 

26. Prime minister. Lord Sunderland. 



ADDISON. 163 

We are satisfied that the bill was most 
perniidous, and we fear that the motives which 
induced Sunderland to frame it were not 
honorable to him ; but we cannot deny that it 
was supported by many of the best and wisest 5 
men of that age. Nor was this strange. The 
royal prerogative had, within the memory of 
the generation then in the vigor of life, been 
so grossly abused, that it was still regarded 
with a jealousy, which, when the peculiar 10 
situation of the house of Brunswick is consid- 
ered, may perhaps be called immoderate. 
The particular prerogative of creating peers 
had, in the opinion of the Whigs, been grossly 
abused by Queen Anne's last ministry ; and 15 
even the Tories admitted that her Majesty, in 
swamping, as it has since been called, the 
Upper House, had done what only an extreme 
case could justify. The theory of the English 
Constitution, according to many high author- 20 
ities, was that three independent powers — the 
sovereign, the nobility, and the commons — 
ought constantly to act as checks on each 
other. If this theory was sound, it seemed to 
follow that to put one of these powers under 25 

II. Brunswick. Another name for the House of Hanover. 

15 Queen Anne had created twelve new Tory peers to break the Whig 
opposition in the House of Lords. 



1 64 ADDISON. 

the absolute control of the other two, was 
absurd. But if the number of peers were 
unlimited, it could not well be denied that the 
Upper House was under the absolute control 
5 of the Crown and the Commons, and was 
indebted only to their moderation for any 
power which it might be suffered to retain. 

Steele took part with the Opposition, Addi- 
son with the ministers. Steele, in a paper 

10 called the ''Plebeian," vehemently attacked the 
bill. Sunderland called for help on Addison, 
and Addison obeyed the call. In a paper 
called the ''Old Whig" he answered and, 
indeed, refuted Steele's arguments. It seems 

15 to us that the premises of both the controver- 
sialists were unsound ; that on those premises 
Addison reasoned well, and Steele ill; and 
consequently Addison brought out a false 
conclusion, while Steele blundered upon the 

20 truth. In style, in wit, and in politeness, 
Addison maintained his superiority, though the 
" Old Whig " is by no means one of his 
happiest performances. 

At first both the anonymous opponents 

25 observed the laws of propriety. But at length 
Steele so far forgot himself as to throw an 
odious imputation on the morals of the chiefs 



ADDISON. 165 

of the administration. Addison replied with 
severity, but, in our opinion, with less severity 
than was due to so grave an offense against 
morality and decorum ; nor did he, in his just 
anger, forget for a moment the laws of goods 
taste and good breeding. One calumny which 
has been often repeated, and never yet con- 
tradicted, it is our duty to expose. It is 
asserted in the '* Biographia Britannica," that 
Addison designated Steele as *' little Dicky." 10 
This assertion was repeated by Johnson, who 
had never seen the " Old Whig," and was 
therefore excusable. It has also been repeated 
by Miss Aikin, who has seen the ''Old Whig," 
and for whom, therefore, there is less excuse, is 
Now, it is true that the words " little Dicky" 
occur in the " Old Whig," and that Steele's 
name was Richard. It is equally true that the 
words " little Isaac " occur in the " Duenna," 
and that Newton's name was Isaac. But we 20 
confidently affirm that Addison's little Dicky 
had no more to do with Steele than Sheridan's 
little Isaac with Newton. If we apply the 
words ''little Dicky" to Steele, we deprive a 
very lively and ingenious passage, not only ofgs 
all its wit, but of all its meaning. Little Dicky 

19. Duenna. A celebrated comic opera by Richard Sheridan. 



1 66 ADDISON. 

was the nickname of Henry Norris, an actor 
of remarkably small stature, but of great humor, 
who played the usurer Gomez, then a most 
popular part, in Dryden's " Spanish Friar." 

5 The merited reproof which Steele had 
received, though softened by some kind and 
courteous expressions, galled him bitterly. 
He replied with little force and great acri- 
mony ; but no rejoinder appeared. Addison 

10 was fast hastening to his grave, and had, we 
may well suppose, little disposition to pro- 
secute a quarrel with an old friend. His 
complaint had terminated in dropsy. He 
bore up long and manfully ; but at length he 

15 abandoned all hope, dismissed his physicians, 
and calmly prepared himself to die. 

His works he intrusted to the care of 
Tickell, and dedicated them a very few days 
before his death to Craggs, in a letter written 

20 with the sweet and graceful eloquence of a 
Saturday's ** Spectator." In this, his last com- 
position, he alluded to his approaching end in 
words so manly, so cheerful, and so ten- 
der, that it is difficult to read them without 

25 tears At the same time, he earnestly recom- 
mended the interests of Tickell to the care of 
Craggs. 



ADDISON. 167 

Within a few hours of the time at which this 
dedication was written, Addison sent to beg 
Gay, who was then Hving by his wits about 
town, to come to Holland House. Gay went, 
and was received with great kindness. To his 5 
amazement, his forgiveness was implored by 
the dying man. Poor Gay, the most good- 
natured and simple of mankind, could not 
imagine what he had to forgive. There was, 
however, some wrong, the remembrance of 10 
which weighed on Addison's mind, and which 
he declared himself anxious to repair. He 
was in a state of extreme exhaustion, and the 
parting was doubtless a friendly one on both 
sides. Gay supposed that some plan to serve 15 
him had been in agitation at court, and had 
been frustrated by Addison's influence. Nor 
was this improbable. Gay had paid assiduous 
court to the royal family. But in the Queen's 
days he had been the eulogist of Bolingbroke20 
and was still connected with many Tories. It 
is not strange that Addison, while heated by 
conflict, should have thought himself justified 
in obstructing the preferment of one whom he 
might regard as a political enemy. Neither is 25 
it strange, that when reviewing his whole life, 

3. John Gay, (1688-1732 ) A poet of some note. His best known 
works are the " Shepherd's Week " and the " Beggar's Opera." 



1 68 ADDISON. 

and earnestly scrutinizing all his motives, he 
should think that he had acted an unkind and 
ungenerous part in using his power against a 

. distressed man of letters, who was as harmless 
sand as helpless as a child. 

One inference may be drawn from this 
anecdote. It appears that Addison on his 
deathbed called himself to a strict account, 
and was not at ease till he had asked pardon 

10 for an injury which it was not even suspected 
that he had committed, for an injury which 
would have caused disquiet only to a very 
tender conscience. It is not, then, reasonable 
to infer, that, if he had really been guilty of 

15 forming a base conspiracy against the fame 
and fortunes of a rival, he would have expres- 
sed some remorse for so serious a crime? 
But it is unnecessary to multiply arguments 
and evidence for the defense, when there is 

20 neither argument nor evidence for the accusa- 
tion. 

The last moments of Addison were per- 
fectly serene. His interview with his son-in- 
law is universally known. " See," he said, 

25" how a Christian can die." The piety of 
Addison was, in truth, of a singularly cheerful 
character. The feeling which predominates in 



ADDISON. 169 

all his devotional writings is gratitude. God 
was to him the all-wise and all-powerful friend 
who had watched over his cradle with more 
than maternal tenderness ; who had listened 
to his cries before they could form themselves s 
in prayer ; who had preserved his youth from 
the snares of vice ; who had made his cup run 
over with worldly blessings ; who had doubled 
the value of those blessings by bestowing a 
thankful heart to enjoy them, and dear friends 10 
to partake them ; who had rebuked the waves 
of the Lingurian gulf, had purified the autum- 
nal air of the Campagna, and had restrained 
the avalanches of Mount Cenis. Of the 
Psalms, his favorite was that which represents 15 
the Ruler of all things under the endearing 
image of a shepherd, whose crook guides the 
flock safe, through gloomy and desolate 
glens, to meadows well watered and rich with 
herbage. On that goodness to which he 20 
ascribed all the happiness of his life, he relied 
in the hour of death with the love which cast- 
eth out fear. He died on the 17th of June, 
1 7 19. He had just entered on his forty- 
eighth year. 25 

13. Campagna. A malarial tract of land in southern Italy. 

15. Addison's version of the twenty-third Psalm was published in No. 
144 of the Spectator. 



1 70 ADDISON. 

His body lay in state in the Jerusalem 
Chamber, and was borne thence to the 
Abbey at dead of night. The choir sang a 
funeral hymn. Bishop Atterbury, one of 

6 those Tories who had loved and honored the 
most accomplished of the Whigs, met the 
corpse, and led the procession by torchlight, 
round the shrine of St. Edward and the graves 
of the Plantagenets, to the chapel of Henry 

10 VII. On the north side of that chapel, in the 
vault of the house of Albemarle, the coffin of 
Addison lies next to the coffin of Montague. 
Yet a few months, and the same mourners 
passed again along the same aisle. The same 

15 sad anthem was again chanted. The same 
vault was again opened, and the coffin of 
Craggs was placed close to the coffin of 
Addison. 

Many tributes were paid to the memory of 

20 Addison; but one alone is now remembered. 
Tickell bewailed his friend in an elegy which 
would do honor to the greatest name in our 
literature, and which unites the energy and 
magnificence of Dryden to the tenderness and 

I. Jerusalem Chamber. A hall in Westminster Abbey hung with 
tapestries depicting the history of Jerusalem. 

8. St. Edward. King of England, 1041-1066. 

9. Plantagenets. The English ruling House from Henry IT. to 
Richard n I 



ADDISON. 171 

purity of Cowper. This fine poem was pre- 
fixed to a superb edition of Addison's works, 
which was published in 1721 by subscription. 
The names of the subscribers proved how 
widely his fame had been spread. That his 5 
countrymen should be eager to possess his 
writings, even in a "costly form, is not wonder- 
ful ; but it is wonderful, that, though English 
literature was then little studied on the contin- 
ent, Spanish grandees, Italian prelates, mar- 10 
shals of France should be found in the list. 
Among the most remarkable names are those 
of the Queen of Sweden, of Prince Eugene, of 
the Grand Duke of Tuscany, of the Dukes of 
Parma, Modena, and Guastalla, of the Doge of 15 
Genoa, of the Regent Orleans, and of Cardinal 
Dubois, We ought to add that this edition, 
though eminently beautiful, is in some import- 
ant points defective; nor, indeed, do we yet 
possess a complete collection of Addison's 20 
writings. 

It is strange that neither his opulent and 
noble widow, nor any of his powerful and 
attached friends should have thought of plac- 
ing even a simple tablet, inscribed with his 25 
name, on the walls of the Abbey. It was not • 

I. William Cowper, (1731-1800.) A distinguished poet, the first of 
the Romanticists . 



172 ADDISON. 

till three generations had laughed and wept 
over his pages that the omission was supplied 
by the public veneration. At length, in our 
own time, his image, skillfully graven, appeared 

sin Poets' Corner. It represents him, as we can 
conceive him, — clad in his dressing gown, and 
freed from his wig, — stepping from his parlor 
at Chelsea into his trim little garden, with the 
account of the "Everlasting Club," or the 

10'* Loves of Hilpa and Shalum," just finished 
for the next day's "Spectator," in his hand. 
Such a mark of national respect was due to 
the unsullied statesman, to the accomplished 
scholar, to the master of pure English elo- 

isquence, to the consummate painter of life and 
manners, lit was due, above all, to the great 
satirist, who alone knew how to use ridicule 
without abusing it, who, without inflicting a 
wound, effected a great social reform, and who 

20 reconciled wit and virtue, after a long and 
disastrous separation, during which wit had 
been led astray by profligacy, and virtue by 
fanaticism. 



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